A more charitable interpretation of the “geek physicians” move from one technology to another is that they are looking for the “technological fix.” Where is the technology that will solve our swirling VUCA-Plus challenges? More generally, Virtual physician leaders and others affiliated with the Virtual Culture hold untested assumptions about their ability to make sense of the fragmentation and ambiguity that exists in the postmodern world of VUCA-Plus. They conceive of their healthcare institution’s enterprise as linking its informational resources to global and technological resources thus broadening the global healthcare network. Somehow, this linking and new related technologies will make our world safer, healthier—and perhaps a bit more sane!
As representatives of a newly emerging culture, those aligned with the Virtual Culture have had to find good reasons for the existing cultures of health care to offer support for this new set of perspectives and practices. Links to other cultures have been established (or at least promoted) that tend to be aspirational. Those who promote the use of new, virtual technologies speak of how it enhances existing clinical practices (the professional Culture) and helps to reduce the drudgery of administrative paperwork (Managerial Culture). New technologies are also offered as ways to deliver new forms of medical service (Alternative Culture), while being presented to those in the Advocacy Culture as a way to increase access of populations throughout the world to medical services.
Peter Geerlofs offers one example of the benefit derived from a new technology (McKenna Pugno, 2006, p. 99):
“Rick O’Neil was a physician leader in a medium-sized internal medicine practice. . . He began wondering what constraints and bottlenecks were typical in the medical practice of internists and what might be done about them. He recognized that the most expensive resource is the clinician, but they often spend their time doing work which lower paid staff could do just as well [or AI could now do.] So using process re-engineering and information technology, he completely redesigned his practice. The last time we spoke, the group of internists at his practice were seeing almost 40 patients per day, patient satisfaction was never higher, and his physicians were happy, didn’t feel overworked, and were getting home at a reasonable time every night.”
Emergent Culture Two: Tangible Culture
It is not surprising that a reactive Tangible Culture emerged given the swirling emergence of “alternate realities,” robotic relationships, and even the introduction of AI “assistants” to surgeons, psychiatrists, and a host of other healthcare providers. It is no wonder that a counterculture has emerged that reasserts benefits accruing from “real” relationships, enduring values, and brick-and-mortar institutions. Those who align with this culture assert the power of continuity. Like those in the Professional and Managerial Cultures, those in the Tangible Culture operate within the boundaries of their specific institution. In fact, they promote and reinforce these boundaries and the distinctive identity of their healthcare institution even more than those in the Professional Culture or Managerial Culture.
