Healthcare IT a Sacred Calling?

At my post Are computers in medicine narcotic? "Why did the National Programme for IT fail?" I observed that the healthcare IT mania/bubble is being driven in part by non-clinical hysterics who believe they will somehow "revolutionize" medicine with information technology tools that are barely able to show improvements at this point in time.

(I first heard this hysterical claim of "revolutionizing medicine" being proffered verbatim by CEO's of several large HIT vendors at a Microsoft Healthcare Users Group Meeting ca. 1997).

It may be worse.

While written with good intentions, I'm sure, now we have an evangelical article by a major medical center CIO promoting the idea that IT workers are on a holy mission (link).

... Whether we give direct care or support someone who does, we are fulfilling a sacred calling — touching human lives. Don’t discount information technology because it’s only computer stuff and nobody really knows where cyberspace is anyway. You could’ve practiced IT in any industry, yet you chose healthcare. Or perhaps healthcare chose you.

Sacred callings come in various forms. Although healthcare IT is nothing unique in itself, the element of sanctity is why I stay. If we want to live a life of significance, we must understand the depth of our calling and then perform as if our work matters. Grasp the privilege of serving humanity with your skills and talents. That is sacred.

A noble premise.

Unfortunately, the the piece then goes off the rails with extravagant commendation regarding the role of IT work in healthcare. While I agree with the overall premise, unfortunately the writer goes on to imply health IT personnel might somehow in their contributions be equal to, or even more important than clinicians:

... It is not unusual for hospitals to conduct non-denominational “Blessing of the Hands” ceremonies ... I had seen this done for clinicians at one of our hospitals and it got me thinking. What about IT? What we do is no less critical to the healing process.

[Puffery and braggadocio in the extreme? Healing has been going on for quite awhile before computers, and still goes on in the current majority of healthcare settings that don't use healthcare IT - ed.]

Our hands may not touch patients, but they do touch their lives in ways unseen. Arguably, IT is the only segment that touches the entire healthcare continuum.

As I've written many times before about healthcare IT professionals, there seems to be a blur about who are enablers of healthcare, and who are facilitators of healthcare.

Self-adulatory hysterics make an otherwise good message less credible, at least outside of health IT circles.

Finally, if health IT is a holy calling, it would be holy indeed for the health IT industry to pay less attention to the holy greenness of crisp banknotes, and heed the increasing corpus of literature showing health IT might in its present form might be devolutionary, not revolutionary. And act accordingly.

-- SS