Dr. Richard Cook on the Health IT Sector's Ills

This explanation of the health IT sector's ills comes from Dr. Richard Cook, a physician, educator, researcher, and patient safety expert formerly at the University of Chicago and now Professor of Healthcare System Safety at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.Dr. Cook was also a member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine panel that studied health IT safety, leading to the 2012 IOM report ("Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care").He was also co-author of an article I consider a must-read for anyone in the health IT sector, Hiding in plain sight: What Koppel et al. Tell Us About Healthcare IT, Journal of Biomedical Informatics. 38 (4): 262-3. Reproduced with his permission:My views are already on record. [This links to his IOM report dissent where he made the case that health IT is a Class 3 medical device and should be regulated - ed.]Politically important activities (cynically, things that cost >10B$) are never neutral. HIT techno-fantasies are common and easily commandeered. Claims about the present and future efficacy of HIT have been altered in bewildering patterns to fit the circumstances of the moment.  This is not uncommon for expensive technologies with a few dominant producers and strong government ties (cf. Mackenzie's Inventing Accuracy, MIT Press, 1993).  The recent history of HIT is dominated by the social construction of several myths.  Although there are technical threads in t...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: Richard Cook healthcare IT lobby healthcare IT difficulties Source Type: blogs