Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: " Medication errors in hospitals don ’t disappear with new technology " . Government: " It ' s the doctors ' fault. " I am cited.

In conclusion:While I wish the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article was longer, in its limited space its author did touch upon the major relevant issues well regarding the PA Patient Safety Authority study and its implications towards national Health IT policy.ONC ' s Dr. Andrew Gettinger ' s responses, however, seems to reflect an unwillingness of he and the government to acknowledge Bad Health IT.  His repsonses also appear to show a lack of appreciation of the complaints about EMRs from nearly 40 medical societies.  " It ' s the doctors fault " for not training enough.He does acknowledge that better IT would be a good thing, but to date the best HHS could come up with to achieve that goal is a toothless Safety Center. Healthcare IT would be the only healthcare device sector afforded that extraordinary regulatory accommodation.The notion that all that is needed to solve EMR problems is clerical training of (resistant) physicians seems that of a computing dilettante, and/or a health IT hyperenthusiast.  Such a view ignores decades of knowledge of bad IT, and in multiple sectors.The blaming of physicians is also decidedly unhelpful towards the reputation of the technology and its enthusiasts in government.  Bad enough that physicians are already spending 50% or more of their time at computers, distracting from patient care.  Gettinger ' s " solution " also fails to acknowledge that physicians often work in multiple hospitals with different EHRs. They don '...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: Andrew Gettinger MD Donald Rucker Healthcare IT experiment healthcare IT risk ONC Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Siemens Healthcare Steve Twedt Source Type: blogs