Twitter can often be such a great source of inspiration. In less than 140 characters, you can read inspiring quotes and see beautiful scenery. You can be refreshed and energized. Then, there are the days that you just get discouraged by what you see and read. I am speaking of the HIMSS conference and the Tweets I see coming from the conference.

It is not that the Tweets are, themselves, depressing or frustrating. In many ways, they are upbeat and highly promising. The depressing part is where we currently stand in the health information arena. Even with the increasing digitalization of medical records, we continue to fight and beg, on a daily basis, to find out what happened to patients in hospital systems not connected to our own. We constantly duplicate lab work and other testing due to a lack of interconnected EHR’s. We continue to do all of this while we are promised the fix is coming in the next upgrade or version. It is the promise and the vision of where health information can and should be that leaves so many of us so frustrated.