Today I had an Italian friend of mine (I lived there for 2 years) find me on Facebook. I hadn’t seen or heard from the man in 10, almost 11 years. It was a joyous reunion and fun to catch up. I really hold relationships dear and truly love seeing people I haven’t seen in years.
One of the funny blogger stories I have was when I reached out to Christina Thielst from Christina’s Considerations. She loves to tell this story to people. First, you have to know that Christina’s blog was one of the first healthcare IT blogs I found when I began blogging 7.5 years ago. In fact, I must admit that I barely knew her name. I always just thought of her as the RHIO (there’s an old term for you) blogger.
Well, 6 years or so later I saw her name and picture on LinkedIn and so I decided to request that we connect. She politely replied that she declined my connection because she only connected with people she knew on LinkedIn. I was a little sad at the response, but replied that she probably had forgotten me and that we’d known each other’s blogs for many years. She then replied with a request to connect and an apology for not recognizing my name. It turns out she was like me and only knew the name of my blog and not my name.
As I thought about these long term relationships it’s fun for me to look back at which blogs were around when I first starting blogging about EMR. Here are a few that come to mind:
Neil Versel – I’m happy that I now consider Neil a friend, but when I first started blogging I looked to him and learned. He was and is a professional journalist and I was just a hack. I learned a lot from him and modeled a lot of what he was doing.
Healthcare Guy – I was always amazed at the stuff Shahid would write on his blog and enjoyed HITSphere which he created. Now he’s my partner in two businesses which we first talked about creating after we met in person at a HIMSS press room. I’m still amazed every time I’m on a call with Shahid. I like to just sit back, listen and learn from him.
HIStalk – I think Mr. H remembers those good old days. The funny thing is that when I first came across his posts they didn’t make much sense to me. They’re so full of industry jargon that it was like reading another language for me. Of course, now it’s often news and rumors I’ve already heard, but I still enjoy his wit. It’s like picking up the healthcare IT tabloids. You can’t look away. Plus, Inga is a sweetheart, even if she won’t tell me who she is. Maybe the Inga mystery is better.
Dalai’s PACS Blog – Sadly someone I have yet to meet in person. The PACS blog was and always has been an irreverent mix of many topics sprinkled with PACS talk. I have a feeling that the blog reflects the writer, which is why I’d love to one day meet him.
The Medical Quack – Barbara Duck has always been a good friend to me. I’ve always hated her blogger design, but she seems to like it. Barbara and I first met on the EMR Update forum (where I really cut my EMR teeth), and she’s always been a kind, but passionate lover of healthcare. I still remember how brave she was to be developing an EMR on her own (she’s since shut it down).
Candid CIO – Still one of my favorite blogs to read. I think Will is one of the smartest hospital CIOs that I’ve met. He has great insight and a great view of his job as CIO. Plus, I love a hospital CIO that’s willing to take time to blog.
The Healthcare Blog – I’m not sure if this one started a little after mine or if I just didn’t find it until after. Although, it was one of the early ones and had great writers like David Kibbe and Vince Kuraitis. Plus, the always interesting Matthew Holt. It’s not exclusively healthcare IT (which is my love), but a huge portion of it is about health IT.
When I think about all of these blogs that have been there since the beginning it’s fun to see so many of them still around and blogging today. That’s a special commitment. Although, I also realized that when it comes to blogs, you might call us the Legacy EMR bloggers. To use my own analogy, are we the Jabba the Hutt EMR bloggers? In some ways I think I am. The question is whether a blogger does better with age like a fine wine or if it just rots and gets thrown out.
Here is some additional information on “legacy bloggers” I realize it is almost impossible to include everyone. At one time I had a banner of all the health related blogs that I follow. It grew and grew and eventually I removed it since my pages became too busy. I began in 2004 which I believe dates me as pre-millenial and/or a dinosaur nearing extension. Legacy bloggers should be placed on the “endangered species list” since the advent of social media platforms. However I utilize my social media sites as inbound connections to the blogs.
Additional legacy blogs include: The Distractible MD (Rob Lambert, MD: Beeter Health (Val Jones MD) TrustedMD (Dimitriy Kryglak) DrWes (Wesley Fisher MD) Dr Anonymous (Nike Sevilla MD) Edwin Leap.com (Edwin Leap MD E.R.) Life as a Healthcare CIO (John Halamka) KevinMD (Kevin Pho MD) Medinnovation (Richard Reece MD)Skeptical Scalpel ((no name given)Suture for a Living (Ribates MD) The Happy Hospitalist (Tamer Mahrous) Dr Synonymous (Patrick Jonas)
I limited this to legacy bloggers who still publish…There are many who have dropped out. I hope this is interesting for you. Sorry I did not put links in..google them
Gary,
Thanks for the great additions. many of whom I’ve followed for a long time as well. A few that I didn’t come to know until much later. No doubt my list wasn’t comprehensive so I’m glad you added to it. Plus, my list has a bias towards health IT.
We should do a big healthcare blogger convention. I guess I kind of see the New Media Meetup at HIMSS as filling that role now.
[…] There are many great EMR bloggers out there. John took a trip down memory lane to remember the blogs he first read when he started blogging 7.5 years ago. Do you recognize any of these legacy EMR bloggers? […]