Meaningful positive changes in medical technology require input from the people who use it. With a full clinical schedule, it’s hard for healthcare providers to find the time, and this leads to a medical technology bottleneck.

A health care practitioner's time is valuable, arguably best spent providing care. They might get to vent about a software problem around the lunch table with colleagues...Or an EHR improvement insight might bubble up in transit to the next round. The ideas that need to be heard by the tech firms beyond hospital walls rarely get there.

Cultivating relationships between the medical staff and the internal IT department could be a step towards transmitting ideas for improvement. The IT department manages the software and systems that the frontline staff use every day, and are more likely to hear about problems and areas for improvement...But formalizing time for the two groups to come together and fostering a culture that encourages feedback increases the chances of fruitful exchange.

The AMA has recognized the need for physician/tech collaboration and has taken action. They have created a resource called Physicians Innovation Network. This is an online forum for physicians and tech companies to join together and develop innovations in healthcare technology products and services, including paid and volunteer opportunities to participate.

Creating forums and platforms for communication, as well as encouraging and protecting time for medical practitioners to participate is all necessary for this to work. In the end, it is all about collaboration, communication and providing busy healthcare workers an outlet for their voices and needs to be heard.