Health IT -- The Musical

An editor at Government Executive came across this video today, which is apparently part of a campaign to raise public awareness about the benefits of increasing adoption of health information technology.

The video was written, directed and performed by Ross Martin, a physician who currently works as senior manager of technology integration and life sciences at Deloitte Consulting in Washington. On his personal Web site he describes himself this way: "The big picture: I'm a physician, writer, musician, inventor, entrepreneur, medical informatician, consultant, and perpetual dreamer, though not necessarily in that order.

If you're looking for a straight arrow, look somewhere else. I gave up long ago the expectation that my life would follow a predictable path."

According to his LinkedIn profile Martin formerly worked on health IT for Pfizer and BearingPoint, though he clearly has other talents:

Communicating the benefits of health IT to the general public is tough. Advocates have been beating this drum for years and we're still a long ways from a national, interoperable health records system, which President Obama has said he hopes to create in five years.

But as someone whose first job in high school was working in the IT department of my local hospital, I'm pleased to see the benefits of using technology in health care discussed in such an accessible, light-hearted format. Perhaps I should send this video to all the nurses and ward clerks who used to stare at us suspiciously while we assured them that the new computers we were installing would in fact help them do their jobs.