Marion J. Ball, a recipient of an inaugural HIMSS Most Influential Women in Health IT Award, has served as senior advisor for healthcare informatics at IBM since 2005. Ball is a member of the Institute of Medicine and serves on the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine.
In this HIMSS STEPS to Value Podcast, Ball talks with host Rod Piechowski about why having a common language in healthcare is critical to providing the best care for patients.
“A common language has always been a powerful tool,” Piechowski notes in introducing the topic. “For millennia, it has tied together individuals into tribes, nations, cultures. For millennia, it has helped people together define their world and refine their collective conceptions of what that world’s parameters are.
A common language is the key to success at the point of care, Piechowski asserts.
So begins the give-and-take between Piechowski and Ball.
[Also: Meet the winners of HIMSS Most Influential Women in Health IT ...]
Ball talks about nurses’ natural workflow and why it is critical to involve nurses in developing the technology systems they use.
“Not to involve the nurse, or the physician or the pathologist or the researcher in developing and mastering how the technology can help them – not bringing them into the picture to help design the system – is a big mistake,” she says. “I think that’s what we see a lot happening.”
Access the Podcast here.
