Austin was Flip the Clinic’s largest Lab yet. Participants mined their own experiences, dug out new ideas, and combined them with existing knowledge to generate a wealth of Flips. But to push Flips further—to send them through a peer review process and into a second iteration within the time we had for the Lab—meant that participants had to pair up and pare down the number of Flips they would work on as a group. All-in-all, eleven Flips—just a fraction of the total generated—were presented at the Lab’s conclusion. What happened to all the other ideas? Here’s a peek at what else participants expressed interest in pursuing collaboratively.

• Patients vote for employee of the month with stickers: Which person was nicest to you today? The staff member with the most stickers wins.
• An X-Prize-like campaign for the interoperability of all electronic medical records.
• Educate patients within clinic walls. Digital resources introduced inside the clinic can be used outside the clinic, extending health learning between visits.
• Increase the time for appointments—especially with new patients. New patients prepare by filling out a history form when they enroll.
• Make a designated cultural liaison trained in cultural competency available for appointments. With a focus on the immigrant population, the cultural liaison would support both clinicians and patients.
• To improve the continuity of care, we suggest a discharge summary that lives in a secure Dropbox. Updating the sheet would alert primary care physicians to updates in their patients health.
• Start talking to bankers, people in finance, and others about health care’s financial situation. In other words, stop talking to stakeholders about the future of payment and reimbursement.
• Bring health into the community and out of the clinic.
• Deliver health care in the work place.
• Patients should answer quality of life screening questions before they see a provider.
• Flip gathering the critical information from a patient from inside the clinic to outside of it. Leverage the pre-appointment time.
• What forms can we standardize across the Austin health care community? Identify those forms and enact a standard.
• TigerText—a HIPAA compliant text messaging service—is available now but being under utilized. Including patients in the system would improve its uptake and impact.
• Push for instantaneous patient feedback. A patient would take a survey in the exam room and the data gathered would be outwardly displayed.
• While waiting for the medical team, cancer patients would be given access to YouTube videos about their diagnosis, and perhaps even from the voices of other patients.
• Promote positive clinical culture. Reward positive behavior.

Which ideas do think are ready for further development? Let us know in the comments.