The bait and switch of health care IT

Last week I was playing golf with some friends. The Boston area has been having a bit of an Indian summer, and we are lucky to still be getting out there (long may it last). The conversation during one of the holes turned to health care information technology, when my friend, who is also a physician, told me about his experiences with a (certain famous) new electronic medical record that’s just been installed in their hospital. I remember this same friend telling me a few months ago that he was looking forward to the change, anticipating that it would make his and his patients’ lives better. He turned around to me after taking his swing and said, “You know what, it’s all been a big disappointment.” That was a profound thing to say, as I’m sure it sums up how hundreds of thousands of physicians across the United States feel about their EMRs. A desperate disappointment indeed. There was so much promise and hype a few years ago, and nobody really wants to go back to the bad old days of piles and piles of paper charts. So what went wrong? An excellent recent article published on KevinMD sums it up, as does a parody video by ZDoggMD. In a nutshell: Health care information technology interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and physician workflow in ways that nobody could have imagined. Disaster might be too strong a word, but then again maybe it’s not, as statistics show that many physicians now spend an absolute minority (as little as 10 percent) of t...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Tech Health IT Source Type: blogs