Technology Time Machine

  I remember my Grandfather sitting in the living room, watching the moon landing on our black and white TV. He said didn’t want to miss a minute of it because he had seen the world go from the horse and buggy to the moon, and never again would a generation experience such a huge advance in one lifetime. I confess as I was cleaning I felt like I HAD seen the horse and buggy days of wound care, a topic I discuss in the article, “Technology in the Clinic.” Trisha Carlson takes this even further in her discussion of telemedicine in wound care. And things are about to get even more interesting. The “stimulus” package recently signed into law will completely change even the most advanced electronic medical records systems. Not only will there be huge changes, but they will happen FAST. David Walker will review the implications of these complex issues in his article on the stimulus package.   In my walk down memory lane, I found the samples I kept of all the “marketing” materials we have produced over nearly 20 years and pondered what sorts of things did and did not work, if ANY of them did. Just what does make a clinic lastingly successful? Vanessa Fox discusses innovative and inexpensive ways to jump start marketing using your website, and you don’t want to miss Darlene Carey’s suggestions on creative ways to promote your wound clinic using physician champions.   As for how we care for patients, I also passed the seven-year mark on the required storage for pharmaceutical study data and thought about all the advanced technologies brought to the wound care marketing in the past 10 years. I disposed of the clinical trial materials on Regranex and Apligraf subjects, as well as some products that never came to market. I remember when we first began hearing about “genetic engineering” and “growth factors” in the wound center. Now we commonly use advanced technologies and look forward to new generations of products. Dot Weir will continue this theme in her article, “Wearing the Sales Hat,” in which she discusses how to demonstrate to your administration that these products are worth the upfront expense. However, some patients can’t afford even the most basic care. Mary Nametka and Leah Amir will tackle the topic how to best help those with limited insurance. As always, Kathleen Schaum will keep us up to date with the latest in coding and reimbursement.   This might be our most interesting and useful issue yet. I only wish that Today’s Wound Clinic had been around twenty years ago when I got started!   For more examples of old marketing samples visit www.todayswoundclinic.com –Caroline Fife, MD, FAAFP, CWS, Coeditor of Today’s Wound Clinic