If you’re like me, you’re now entering a depressed state as you think about what you’re going to do in the evenings now that the Olympics is over. I love the Olympics and the thing I love most about the Olympics is seeing people achieve the pinnacle of success in their chosen sport. It’s an absolute thrill to see them successful.
While it’s amazing to see who wins the gold, I also love to hear all the athletes that are just grateful to be part of such a special and unique experience. The great thing about life is that it doesn’t give out only one gold. In fact, I’d argue that there are an unlimited number of “gold” medals available to all of us that want to achieve success in our careers.
This is particularly true in the world of healthcare IT. There is so much work to be done, we need to have as many gold medal worthy people working in healthcare IT as possible. Optimizing an EHR, doing advanced healthcare analytics, selecting and implementing the right technology for your healthcare organization are all challenging tasks and we need everyone involved in these efforts to be winners. Unlike in the Olympics, every healthcare organization can and should win a gold medal. Their patients deserve that kind of effort.
The problem for many in health IT is that they want the gold medal, but they don’t want to put in the effort required to receive a gold medal. While the number of proverbial “gold medals” that can be given in health IT is unlimited, these medals aren’t given out to those who don’t deserve them. To really deserve a gold medal for your health IT work, it takes work. Are you willing to put in gold medal effort?
