Some of you might know, that along with blogging about EHR and Healthcare IT, I also blog about dance reality TV shows like So You Think You Can Dance. You can imagine how interested I was when those two worlds came together in this video that they did on So You Think You Can Dance Australia:
I can imagine how much fun the kids had seeing these amazing dancers in their hospitals. On this site we often talk about the technical side of things and that’s extremely important. It can have an amazing impact for good or bad on the patient experience. Although, just as important is some of the very non-technical things that happen in hospitals.
One of my high school friends is going through chemo treatment at a hospital right now. He’s a musician and ever since I knew him in junior high he loved strumming the guitar. This weekend I’ve seen a stream of pictures of him having jam sessions in the hospital. Plus, his family’s been posting “Seldom Heard on the Cancer Floor of the Hospital”. I can imagine those pictures and the comments they get are a great motivator for my friend.
In an interesting parallel, my wife and I went to see “If I Stay” this weekend as well. For those not familiar with the story, it’s hard to describe, but a young girl gets in a car accident and loses her family. She’s in a coma, but she can still see and hear what’s going on around her. The nurse tells her that she gets to choose if she stays or not.
Hollywood aside, there’s certainly a lot of healing that goes beyond the medicine. I don’t think we have a great way to track or measure the value of family support, attitude, etc. However, those who’ve worked in medicine know what a difference it can make. Plus, even if you don’t believe this helps the body heal physically, it can definitely play an important part in the emotional healing that’s often needed as well.
I realize this is a bit of a sidebar from what we usually write about here, but the topics were floating around in my mind. The key thought for me is that we need to keep a broad perspective on healthcare. There’s a lot more to health and healing than what we can measure with a scale or lab test.