ICYMI: April Fools’ Articles
Clinton Campaign Slogan Error: ‘I’m with EHR’ Auto-Corrected to ‘I’m with HER’
NEW YORK, N.Y., April 1 – A staffer for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton acknowledged today that an iconic slogan associated with the campaign was originally intended to be a statement of support for electronic health records (EHRs).
Campaign spokesperson Dani Appel told a writer from the health information technology blog HERtalk that Clinton’s well-known ‘I’m With Her’ slogan – often seen in its hashtag form, #ImWithHER, on social media websites – was originally supposed to be ‘I’m With EHR’ in a statement of support for the health IT industry. The campaign team didn’t realize it was incorrect until they opened that first shipment of bumper stickers proclaiming ‘I’m With HER’, so they just ran with it.
Appel challenged Clinton’s rival Republican and Democratic candidates to similarly state their commitment to the digitization of medical records. A spokesperson for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders responded that Sander’s ‘#ImWithHIMSS’ slogan and hashtag has existed since last October, but has been underreported by the media.
Epic Rebrands Reporting Suite
VERONA, Wis., April 1 – Electronic health record company Epic today announced a change to its widely used reporting and analytics module. The intelligence software suite, referred to as “Cogito ergo sum” or “Cogito” for short, has been renamed to “Je Pense Donc Je Suis,” or “Je Pense” for short.
In a de facto mea culpa, Epic spokesman Shawn Kiesau admitted, “The status quo was unsustainable. Most customers simply found it too challenging to pronounce correctly a phrase from an irrelevant lingua mortua – ergo the name change.” The suite’s new name, “Je Pense,” is the original French version of Rene Descartes’s famous epigram, and sticks with the sentiment of existential affirmation.
Hourlong training sessions in Cogito pronunciation for Epic employees and end-users had not corrected the issue, says Kiesau: “There was a certain a priori knowledge of Latin that was, ipso facto, just not present for most people – regardless of our ad nauseam promotion of the name, our classes, our users’ group sessions, et cetera.”
When asked if the subtle nuances of the French language are an appropriate fit for Epic’s largely English-speaking users, Kiesau replied, “Users are already making bona fide efforts. C’est la vie.”
athenahealth CEO Reveals Enthusiastic Use of Epic’s MyChart
WATERTOWN, Mass., April 1 – In a recent interview with health information technology blog HIStalk, CEO Jonathan Bush of the electronic health record vendor athenahealth revealed that he uses – and admires – the MyChart patient portal application developed by one of his company’s competitors, Epic.
In the unedited video interview, posted Friday, Bush raves excitedly about the “splendid usability,” “wealth of information,” and “chill vibe” of his healthcare provider’s patient portal. He offers an example: “Like a few weeks ago – I pulled my phone out after my duet with Erykah Badu at SXSW because I remembered I needed to schedule some vaccinations. Tom Hardy and I are running an ultramarathon in Madagascar next month. Anyway, I had them scheduled in under a minute. See, this kind of positively disruptive patient empowerment is exactly what athenahealth is about.”
When told by the interviewer that the application is Epic’s, and not athenahealth’s, Bush expresses incredulity: “Well, that’s not right. It’s mine. I track my dives on MyScuba. I post my arbor sculptures on MyTreeShaping. And I [expletive] well look at my chart on MyChart. C’mon. Epic would call that EpicChart or something.”