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Posted by Samuel W. Velsor IV - via Washington Post
A biased report one possible reason being a matter this complex should have had more then one author.
Today, barely 8 percent of hospitals have even a basic electronic medical system. Only 17 percent of physicians use electronic records, and many of those are uninstalling them, including 20 percent of physician groups in Arizona, according to a June survey by HealthLeaders-InterStudy. Outside the United States, countries further along the digital curve have experienced major problems with American-made health IT systems.
I find it horrid that American IT firms fall way below the curve on IT systems – by no big surprise.
“Health IT can be beneficial, but many current systems are clunky, counterintuitive and in some cases dangerous,” said Ross Koppel, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who published a key study on electronic medical records in 2005.
An example of the negitive views out there.
Having been an IT manager in a medical practice that tried to go electronic 100% in 2003 I can understand some of the problems but we by no means had all the problems that you are stating. One major issue was the actual doctors who were most opposed to change further problem is computers required more one on one time with a patient instead of the "Assembly line" approach with the most detail coming from the dictation. Electronic records is vital to insure that a patient is seen and all the required points of an office visit being recorded and completed by a doctor. Lastly tech support of the EMR firm have to be able to react faster to practice needs, also most important is for the practice to have a very strong IT manager. I had almost no problem with the support. Further, doctors resist spending the required amounts of time on training on a system - they need to know what it CAN do for them.