It’s not often that morning radio inspires me to write a blog post, but the latest bit from The Bert Show here in Atlanta surprisingly provided a bit of inspiration this morning. They’ve run a segment each day this week profiling a family with a chronic or terminally ill child that the show’s charity, Bert’s Big Adventure, has selected to come on its annual, all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World.

I have to confess that I typically turn the dial when these segments start, otherwise I end up blubbering in my car, eliciting strange looks from folks stopped next to me in traffic. Listening to the medical struggles these families have had to go through with their children, and knowing the uncertainty many of them still face, always brings me to tears. Maybe it’s the mom in me, but I’d like to think any human being’s heartstrings would be pulled just as much as mine typically are.

I didn’t turn the dial this morning for some reason. Instead, I listened to a mother recount the heart transplant her young daughter recently went through, and her cries of joy when she found out they’ll get to go to Disney.

And then it hit me – this is why people in healthcare IT do what they do. This is why the providers, the vendors, the consultants, the educators, the government, and heck, even fringe folks like myself, are in this industry. Those more jaded than I am might say it’s to make a buck or two, but I’d like to think that we all believe in healthcare IT because it has the potential to save lives, to make heart transplants successful, to ensure that patients like you, me and everyone we know don’t fall through the cracks in between procedures and check ups.

Industry buzzwords come and go, but quality clinical outcomes and heartwarming stories of little girls that get to go to Disney World because they survived surgeries do not. I hope to never be on the outcomes side of healthcare, but if I or my family do, I’ll rest a little easier knowing that our care is being developed by people that take it to heart.
 

Jennifer Dennard is Social Marketing Director for Atlanta-based Billian's HealthDATA, Porter Research and HITR.com. Connect with her on Twitter @SmyrnaGirl.