Well, it makes me mad. So I blogged about it on The Center for Health Transformation's American People's Online Summit. So, even if you ignore my post, please participate in the dialogue. Whatever your politics, the CHT is the place to go to if you want meaningful debate and answers.
In case you don't want to click the link, here is a reprint of my post
Even as a 12-year old I understood that access to a personal computer represented a profound societal change. I remember explaining to a puzzled uncle that, in the past, those who understood the law had the power, while in the future power would go to those who understood technology.
In graduate school, I read about Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of HTML, and the first browser-editor called the WorldWideWeb. It was clear to me that this was going to change everything. I was going to witness the democratization of information.
My father is a physician and nearly half my family are clinicians of some sort or another. The applications of this technology to saving lives were obvious to me. And yet, I often feel like I am bashing my head against a wall.
In the 1990s I demonstrated a hand-held, physician-prescribing tool that allowed a physician to create a prescription. This prescription was automatically screened against a battery of drug utilization reviews, printed for the patient or electronically transmitted to a pharmacy. The system would even advise the doctor regarding the drug’s status with respect to the patient’s drug formulary. “But,” the doctor said, “I can write six prescriptions a minute on paper – I can only write 4 with your gadget.” He proceeded to prove his point by writing 6 completely ILLEGIBLE prescriptions in one minute.
“Save me time or money, preferably both” is the message that every technology vendor gets when dealing with physicians. I understand that physicians feel like victims. I understand that Managed Care has ruined their quality of life, and I have first-hand experience with the onerous consequences of defensive medicine; but, physicians remain one of the most powerful constituents in America. Hospital Boards have been known to berate CEOs for not spending their lunch-hour in the physician lounge rolling out the red carpet; hospital financial viability is threatened by the admitting behavior of only a few dozen surgeons. “Physician affinity” is now a hospital, self-defense buzz-word.
When I lived in Chicago I had two doctors on the same floor of Northwestern Hospital. One used an EMR and had my chart at her finger-tips. The other, my primary care physician, did not. He needed two days to get my chart which, by the way, was stored just a few floors below. It was hard for me to accept that my chart being two-days away represented the best care for me.
What I think about when asked to fill out reams of paper in a physician’s office is instead of hearing “save me time or money” I would like to hear “help me protect my patients” or “double check my numbers” or “let’s make sure my patients are educated”.
Paper kills. Physicians are in the business of saving lives.
When will I hear physicians demanding life-saving, mistake catching, outcomes supporting technology? When that day arrives, and I’ve dedicated my career to making sure it does, the 12-year old in me will be happy.
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