Verdict on EMR: Not Good
The first national coordinator for health information technology, Dr. David J. Brailer, was appointed in 2004, by President George W. Bush. Dr. Brailer encouraged the beginnings of the switch from paper charts to computers. But in an interview last month, he said: “The current information tools are still difficult to set up. They are hard to use. They fit only parts of what doctors do, and not the rest.”
Based on error rates in other industries, the report estimates that if and when electronic health records are fully adopted, they could be linked to at least 60,000 adverse events a year.
Entire article is worth reading.
The part that especially worried me (besides the threats to patients, of course) was the likelyhood of fraudulent billing.
Similar problems were made with paper based health reports, the bugs of electric tablets will get fixed over time.
The benefits of accessing electronically recorded data will always far outweigh the negative consequences. Whether using computarized programs or not, there is always going to be that slight chance of error…nor computers or people are perfect, and they are both bound to make mistakes every now and then.
One statement that kept me thinking for a little while was “based on error rates in other industries…”, why base an opinion on results obtained in completely different settings? Those electronic records used in those “different” industries may not even be the same as the ones used in the medical industry…they may not even work the same way…so I would think that the results may differ from industry to industry.
It is vital to weight long term benefits also. In other industries switching to Information systems is difficult, resulting in short term mishaps, but in the long run make the company more efficient. The healthcare providers must make it their mission to minimize the negative impact of the shift.
“even though there a lot of challenges, the benefits of information technology are “enormous” — improved safety and quality of care, convenience for patients and better outcomes in general.”
Hardly do we see the advance in technology act as a hinderence (with the exception of implementation) to progress.
Milt said that 60,000 is an estimate based on other industries, and that’s it. I’m not one of those source sharks, but would have liked to at least see something on it.. I wonder how many errors happen every year under the previous system.
This entire problem is created by a market, sadly. This is what happens when you have 20 different EMR programs, all using proprietary software and records. None of them talk to each other, there isn’t a common record or imaging format, and EMRs implemented without some *gasp* government regulation to enforce a common language will keep us in VHS vs Betamax land forever. The government doesn’t even have to come up with the language. How about just a simple rule that the EMR manufacturers have to create consensus committee on a common record format, a common imaging format, and a common security/HIPAA compliance system so that no matter what computer the patient’s history was initially entered on, all that work doesn’t have to be repeated every time the patient sees a new doctor, is referred to a specialist or admitted to a hospital? We need them to behave just like the manufacturers of DVDs or CDs.
We could still have a free market, just one that makes sense, and would be competitive without the abuse of anti-competitive proprietary formats.
I don’t understand why it is such a difficult task to make an EMR system work.