Solo sail to highlight Hawaiian Eye Foundation, conversion to EHRs

John Pinto explains the background of his 2012 “Voyage to EHR” from San Diego to Honolulu.

John B. Pinto

With apologies for those of you who were hoping to read another practice economics pearl, this month’s column is a bit of a diversion. Thanks for your indulgence. In a roundabout way, this article about an upcoming sailing adventure resonates with the adventure that you and your staff undertake each day to care for patients and adapt to a fast-changing environment.

Voyage to EHR

Most of you have flown to Hawaii, hopefully for family vacations as well as OSN’s annual Hawaiian Eye meetings (this coming January on Maui — mark your calendar). Once you get from wherever you live in America to your intermediate hub on the West Coast, flying about 2,500 miles across the eastern Pacific Ocean takes roughly 5 hours — 6 if you include the Transportation Security Administration’s personal intrusions.

Now imagine taking the same trip on foot.

Walking briskly at a little more than 3 miles per hour, nonstop, would get you to Hawaii in a month. That is the pace I will be traveling solo starting May 6, 2012, when Aurelia, a 24-foot sloop, and I set sail from San Diego.

Besides arriving in Honolulu Bay safe and sound and tan sometime before the hurricane season, my chief goal is to raise funds for John Corboy’s Hawaiian Eye Foundation. Since 1984, the nonprofit foundation has been dedicated to promoting the preservation, restoration and improvement of vision for people of the Pacific Basin through charitable service, education and research programs.

People of the Pacific Basin, because of isolation and impoverishment, are often underserved by eye care practitioners and face urgent needs for the prevention and treatment of vision loss and blindness due to conditions such as cataracts, pterygia, diabetic retinopathy and corneal trauma.

This will be my third foray on the foundation’s behalf. Fourteen years ago I joined a work crew in Tonga. In 2000 we raised $50,000 to set up a new clinic in the same island chain.

Logistics for this sailing/fundraising trip are kindly being furnished by the staff of Ocular Surgery News along with the staff of ophthalmic IT systems provider Compulink, which has signed on as the title sponsor. Compulink will also provide technical support during the voyage, allowing Aurelia to post regular updates as she crosses the Pacific Ocean at a pace of about 85 miles per day.

This solo sailing challenge, in addition to aiding the foundation, highlights the sometimes scary parallel adventure undertaken by a growing number of practices as they transition from paper charts to electronic health records. It is for this reason that the trip’s official title is “Voyage to EHR.”

An ocean crossing is handy imagery for the passage to EHR taken by practices:

• When you start contemplating either voyage, your first impression is, “Nah, that would be crazy.” People who know you are happy to second that opinion.
• Preparation and the right partner are the keys to success.
• As commitment grows, it feels less scary.
• There will be storms; you will survive them just fine.
• The more people who take the voyage, the more routine it gets. (Some of the earliest EHR voyagers did indeed sink and drown; launching today is much more predictable and safe.)

This will be my second trans-Pacific sail. The 2,500-mile California-to-Hawaii passage takes 25 days in good conditions and can take 40 days or longer if conditions erode. The challenge is increased by going solo and by Aurelia’s diminutive size, which puts a premium on contingency planning.

Sea trials and boatyard commissioning to prepare for the voyage have commenced in Southern California.

To allow singlehanded sailing, Aurelia will be outfitted with both electrical and mechanical autopilots, allowing 24/7 progress at 3 or 4 miles per hour without anyone at the helm. Because a 1-month trip could stretch to 2 months or longer in the event of adverse weather or a mechanical breakdown, Aurelia will carry several months’ provisions and a manual desalinator.

A few fast facts

• Aurelia is small but mighty, built in 2001 by Pacific Seacraft. Her sister ships were named some years ago by Fortune magazine as one of the “100 Products That America Makes Best.” Loaded for the voyage, she will weigh about 9,000 pounds, twice the usual heft for a boat of that size.
• Aurelia is largely bullet-proof. Her fiberglass hull is more than an inch thick, something not seen on some 40-footers. However, she has seven chinks in her armor, seven “thru-hulls,” each guarded by a carefully machined bronze valve that the prudent sailor checks closely and often. If one of these valves were to fail, Aurelia would sink in a matter of minutes.
• I will have a life raft, a satellite phone and all the usual safety gear. An emergency locator beacon, such as those that small planes carry, can be deployed if necessary.
• Aurelia has an 18-horsepower diesel engine, but with only 20 gallons of fuel on board, I will be sailing 99% of the time. The engine is used to help the solar panel top up the batteries and to power out of any doldrums.
• Weather-wise, May is one of the most settled windows for crossing this stretch of ocean. Before this time frame, winter storms can intrude; as summer wears on, the threat of being overrun by a Mexican hurricane grows.
• The May 6 launch date allows me to start and finish the voyage under a full moon. Not only is this more romantic, but it makes for safer night sailing.
• It is not possible to sail directly in a straight line from San Diego to Hawaii because there is a large zone of calm air (the “Pacific High”) right in the middle of the ocean. Instead, one sails south from San Diego, paralleling the Baja California coast for about 800 miles before taking a slow right turn to Oahu.
• Navigation is 100% GPS these days, with no sextants except as a backup. As a practical matter, when you are halfway to Hawaii, all you really need to do is follow the jet contrails from North America.
• The most difficult aspect of the voyage has nothing to do with navigation or seamanship: It is all about sleep hygiene. As a solo sailor, I have to keep a watch on the horizon at all times for shipping traffic — night and day. The longest allowed rest periods are 20- to 25-minute naps (about the time it takes a freighter to appear over the horizon). But this all balances out. Because there is no one else aboard, nobody else has to be subjected to the solo sailor’s sleep-deprived, notoriously cranky personality.

So, there you have it. I will keep you posted from time to time, in these pages and online. If you are interested in joining the adventure as a private or corporate sponsor of the Hawaiian Eye Foundation, please go to www.hawaiianeyefoundation.org for details. Thanks in advance for anything you and your practice can do to support the foundation’s great work. Go to www.compulinkadvantage.com/advantage/voyage-to-ehr.html to access regular progress updates and Facebook and Twitter links.

• John B. Pinto is president of J. Pinto & Associates Inc., an ophthalmic practice management consulting firm established in 1979. He is the author of John Pinto’s Little Green Book of Ophthalmology; Turnaround: 21 Weeks to Ophthalmic Practice Survival and Permanent Improvement; Cash Flow: The Practical Art of Earning More From Your Ophthalmology Practice; The Efficient Ophthalmologist: How to See More Patients, Provide Better Care and Prosper in an Era of Falling Fees; The Women of Ophthalmology; and his new book, Legal Issues in Ophthalmology: A Review for Surgeons and Administrators. He can be reached at 619-223-2233; email: pintoinc@aol.com; website: www.pintoinc.com.