Epic Fails And Deadly IT Cultures (An OPINION Piece)

The Ebola Virus...Image courtesy of scienceblogs.comIt's bad enough that a fellow from Liberia by the name of Thomas Eric Duncan through hubris, stupidity, or simply bad luck brought Ebola to our shores. He did ultimately seek medical attention in the Emergency Room of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas when he became symptomatic with the characteristic fever and pain of an Ebola infection. In fact, he presented twice to the Dallas ER. In between his two visits, Mr. Duncan was set loose on a city of well over a million souls while his disease was at its most infectious level. (He has since died of the disease, and sadly, one of the nurses who cared for him now has it. Let us pray for her speedy recovery.) How could this breach of public health have happened? It seems to have something to do with IT, specifically, the configuration of the hospital's EHR.CNBC quotes Jonathan Bush (as it turns out, Jonathan is the nephew and cousin of the former Presidents...hat tip to Ranjan), head of Athenahealth:The failure of a Dallas hospital's electronic medical record system to flag a man who turned out to be infected with the Ebola virus underscores how clunky, outdated and inefficient health information systems typically are in the U.S., a medical IT CEO charged Friday. "The worst supply chain in our society is the health information supply chain," said Bush. . . "It's just a wonderfully poignant example, reminder of how disconnected our health-care system is." "It's just...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs