The Homa Files

Ken’s Take: As a a digital kinda guy — who worked with a start-up that digitized med records —  I’m naturally in favor of electronic medical records.

But,   I am a bit concerned about privacy issues and how gov’t will use my info.

Further, I’ve watched my doc struggle while inputting data to an online system and I’ve had digital prescriptions get lost and “corrupted” in cyberspace.  So, the below article struck a chord.

Now, I’m officially ambivalent on the subject. Anybody have a strong point-of-view

* * * * *

Excerpted from RCP: Government by Holiday Inn Express, October 27, 2009

Starting during the campaign, President Obama touted digital medical records to reduce errors, improve care, and cut costs. More than $19 billion of stimulus funds were earmarked for it.

But when the Washington Post examined the matter, they discovered that digital records not only fail to produce the promised benefits, they actually reduce efficiency and cause errors.

The digital systems currently available give physicians too much information. Pages upon pages of digital information document every conceivable ailment a patient might have.

Doctors have difficulty wading through all of the unnecessary data to reach the critical information.

One emergency room physician at a hospital that had adopted a digital system complained, “It’s been a complete nightmare. I can’t see my patients because I’m at a screen entering data . … Physician productivity and satisfaction have fallen off a cliff.”

Some hospitals have adopted digital systems only to abandon them.

Full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/27/government_by_holiday_inn_express_98882.html#

This entry was posted on November 13, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Health Care / Medical Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.