I grew up in a small town in rural Missouri surrounded by a family of physicians. As a kid, we would go into my father’s office on Sunday nights so he could go through a huge pile of paper charts and dictate them all onto cassette tapes (link for those of you too young to remember these relics!) Originally designed for dictation machines, many doctors like my father would use these cassettes and ‘mini-cassettes’ so they could move around while they record. On Monday, his staff would listen to the tapes and transcribe them. I remember thinking, ‘we have a computer at home, so why couldn’t he use a computer at work?’ There had to be a better way for doctors and their staff to use their time to treat people instead of spending so much time doing paperwork. Over the past few decades, I have worked in various roles in the healthcare industry around the world—in hospitals, ambulatory centers, and with consumers. I’ve seen firsthand how providers’ lives, practices, and the consumer experience have evolved dramatically. We have certainly come a long way by making these huge stacks of paper charts electronic, but we need to do more for people who need care and the professionals who treat them. We have the technology and the data to take a huge leap forward in providing an automated and seamless experience that improves the health of communities. This is why I was inspired to join NextGen Healthcare in its mission to empower the transformation of ambulatory care—it’s a worthy cause that I’m passionate about. We have reached an inflection point for accelerating the next phase of healthcare. Because we can do better—for care providers and consumers of care. Many doctors are still working on Sunday nights, like my father. But now they work from their laptop or tablet at home instead of having to drive to the office. We still haven’t fully leveraged technology to automate tasks like billing, scheduling, and compliance so providers and care teams can stay focused on delivering care and optimize their time in the office.