I hope you’ll indulge me for a moment as I get a bit nostalgic. Yesterday, EMR and HIPAA just passed the 9 million pageview mark. Happy Valentine’s Day indeed! When I look at that number, I really can’t quite process what it means. When I first started blogging, I would track and celebrate my blogging traffic milestones pretty regularly. I don’t do it much anymore, but 9 million seemed worth of a few moments to reminisce.
On May 5, 2006, I celebrated reaching 30,000 EMR visitors. I described myself as thrilled, and I assure you that I was incredibly thrilled that so many people were reading my blog. How ironic that I said, “It’s amazing to me that I have gone from 0 to 30,000 so fast.” Maybe that’s why I’m utterly amazed to think that what initially took me 5 months of blogging, I now do in a week. The last line of the post really strikes me, “Who would have thought I’d love EMR so much?” That still rings true 8 years and thousands of MR posts later. I do love EMR.
I still feel the same gratitude for readers that I expressed in that post as well. I really can’t think about it too much without getting a little choked up. I often tell people that I don’t consider what I do work, because I love it so much. Hearing from readers who’ve found my blog posts valuable is a wonderful feeling that I hope to have for the rest of my life.
I’m also lucky to work with such amazing, talented, and wonderful writers. Everyone always asks me how I manage 15 blogs. My answer is always simple: “I have a lot of help from a lot of great writers.” I consider all of my writers not only my colleagues, but my friends. If you want to know why I love HIMSS so much, it’s because I get to be with and learn from my fellow bloggers and readers.
I’m excited to see where Healthcare Scene will go next. It’s been incredibly fun and exciting for me to integrate Healthcare IT Central into the Healthcare Scene network. Working with Gwen on that has been a wonderful experience and I’m lucky to have someone so great on my team. I’ve been inspired by the support everyone’s given me as I’ve organized the inaugural Health IT Marketing and PR Conference. I can’t wait to see everyone in Las Vegas.
Finally, thank you to some really amazing advertisers who have supported the work we do here for many years. I never thought I’d be a blogger when I grew up. I never thought I’d be a full time blogger, but I sure glad I am. I really appreciate all the advertisers who’ve made it possible. I hope we can continue to deliver great results for them.
Now for some fun EMR and HIPAA stats for those still reading:
- 9,008,190 pageviews
- 4,768 daily email subscribers
- 1,926 blog posts
- 8,875 comments
- 11 bloggers (not counting some amazing guest bloggers)
Now, on to the next 9 million!
Congratulations John; a well deserved success. Please keep up the good work.
Many get benefitted. Your blogs are one of the first ones I recommend to all my team mates, specially ones who are new to Health IT. Since we draft and do not hire free agents, most of the new joinees are new to Health IT. Your blogs come in handy to give them an idea about HIT and related information.
Thanks again and best of luck.
Thanks Anthony. I really appreciate hearing this. I know you’ve been along for most of the ride. I just checked and you’ve made 92 comments with your first comment being back in 2010. So, you deserve some of the credit for making the site better as well.