I Turned a Book Into a Health Technology Business

Carolyn Hartley

Single, with teenage daughters, I had to make a decision. Receive 10 percent royalties on a $109 technical book or keep writing fiction and get paid 10% on an $8.00 book. My passion was in fiction and creative nonfiction, but I was facing proms, cars, college, and a mortgage.

In 2002, the American Medical Association took a chance on me to develop a book on HIPAA privacy and security. The concept: interpret a complex law, then, help build a secure infrastructure for electronic heath information exchange so that patients/consumers could move from one physician to another without having to explain their life’s surgical/medical/family history at each stop — an ATM for health care. I hand-selected my first author team and battled rejection from my new husband who said I just needed a real job.

Sales on this first technical book exceeded $3 million, resulting in a new publishing friend, and grateful author team who later became national policy-makers and advisors.  My husband issued a grand apology which I still wear on my right hand.

While health care was clinically strong, providers were far behind in technology adoption, creating administrative nightmares.  AMA asked for a series of books that would help physicians implement patient-centered technologies.  Technical content took on new meaning when my brother and sister died of sudden and aggressive cancers. Their caregivers put careers on hold, struggling to maintain a list of chemotherapy drugs, radiation schedules, and lab results, schlepping paper notebooks filled with handwritten notes from hospital to oncologist to radiation, and pharmacy, trying to keep providers informed on their loved one’s care.

That’s when I dug in. I parlayed content from my books into my own small business, determined to make a small dent for patients and their families, but also to help physicians navigate through complex and costly technology adoption. Heath information technology (Health IT) was changing so fast that as soon as AMA published our electronic health record (EHR) implementation book, content was outdated. I created and serialized the Physicians eHealth Report, an online newsletter, and purchased the domain, PhysiciansEHR.com. In 2009, President Obama dramatically increased the technology adoption rate leveraging funds from ARRA to incentivize provider adoption.

Because of the shortage of knowledgeable health IT consultants, our  company was sought by EHR vendors, physicians,  hospitals, and national medical societies to help set policy, define best practices, listen, observe, and help redefine processes, very similar to what an author does in creating and rewriting content. In 2012, we served up our methodology and know-how into a learning/project management software system that replicates us when we cannot be present.

I don’t hold an MBA. Quite the opposite –my Masters is in philosophy and medical anthropology. But I have taken many challenges to the Lord and asked for guidance. Another secret is the essential skills I learned as a former educator turned writer, nurtured by friends with the Kansas City Writer’s Group. I live in the South now, but while a Midwesterner, my writer friends helped mold my interview skills, define my story telling and creative nonfiction writing style, and build great appreciation for crisp, plain language.

In July 2013, my author team completed our 20th title for AMA. I never gave up writing. Instead, I provide content every day. Seventy percent of physicians have adopted some sort of technology, and now it’s the consumer’s turn to thrive. I’m on it.