Henry Ford is supposed to have said about market research, “If I had asked the public what they wanted they would have said, faster horses.” Ford, of course, invented the Model T and revolutionized transportation.

I was reminded of this quote at a recent conference I attended, in which many lamentations were voiced about the time and tedium involved in recording data into electronic medical records. Physicians are tired and frustrated, while patients are disappointed that their doctor has his or her head in a computer instead of focused on them. As one presenter pointed out, EMRs were created by putting forms onto the computer – in essence, creating faster horses.

However, how people communicate today is increasingly by the use of visual symbols. Other presenters shared graphical interfaces and “forms” that were primarily composed of pictures that took much less time and concentration to complete. Maybe what we need is more flashes of insight into how to do things completely differently, than how to improve a bit on a system that we have that isn’t working so well in the first place.

Were you at MGMA13 too? I’d love to hear what you thought of the conference in the comments section below. What was your favorite part?

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