I have experience with electronic records as the wife of a patient at the Cleveland Clinic. The ability to keep everything from blood work to echo cardiograms to surgical history in one place, accessible to any computer in any doctor's office or nurses station is spectacular. It also means tests can be emailed to hometown docs in no time.
I don't know as much about the privacy issues that trouble some, especially issues relating to the "medical history credit card" concept but I'm sure there's a way around them - and that would also help in situations like car accidents or other disasters where instant access to history could save lives. If you are on blood thinners or allergic to penicillin it's hard to first responders to learn that. A card in the wallet would make a huge difference.
It's apparently enormously expensive to install in a single or group practice so perhaps there could be a tax incentive for those who make the investment, since it would help everyone.
The government should subsidize the cost of switching to electronic records, it already subsidizes switching from analog to digital tv signals and I don't see how this situation is different aside from the fact that it is much more important and could have serious benefits as far as efficiency and saving peoples lives.
Regarding the privacy issue, what's more private? A piece of paper lying on someone's desk or a password-protected, encrypted electronic file?
I agree that some of the federal funding for healthcare reform definitely needs to go towards offsetting the costs of converting to electronic health system. I think cost is one of the main reasons why healthcare providers do not want to switch to electronic systems.
I also think some of the funding should be used to educate healthcare providers about the benefits (financial and clinical) of converting to electronic systems. This will go a long way towards making our healthcare system more efficient and reduce costs in the long run.
I am a solo family practice doc and these numbers are ridiculous. They are polling the very small number of physicians who had place EMR in their offices at the time of the survey, in other words doctors who liked it enough to be early adopters and shell out a bunch of money for it.
I have used EMR in the hospital and there are things it does very well, but also things it does very poorly. Until EMRs have advanced enough to improve efficiency and/or profitability in the office setting they make no sense for the majority of physicians, especially small offices.
I enjoyed your comment. It turns out that there is an incentive for doctors to install electronic medical records passed as part of the stimulus bill recently. The incentives start at $18,000 per doctor and go down over time, to incent earlier rollout.
Last Friday, I witnessed a women and her son arguing (very audibly) with a pharmacist over how long she had to wait for her two prescriptions to be processed. Apparently, she had been waiting for 45 minutes. The reasons for the hold-up? 1) The pharmacist could not read one of the prescriptions due to the doctor's illegible handwriting and she was waiting for him to call her back to clarify the prescription. And 2, the doctor prescribed a medication that is not covered by her health plan.
I am sure this happens everday in every pharmacy in America. This situation is a colossal waste of time for the doctor, the pharmacist and the patient. Every doc in America should be leveraging the technology that is available to make prescribing safer and more efficient. Every doc in America should be ePrescribing. And our government needs to support our docs to make this happen. Subsidies are not enough. Docs need support to transistion to an "e" system, and there needs to be a more simple platform for the exchange of data...
The Veterans Administration has perhaps the most advanced medical records system. Having all this information to hand makes a huge difference in patient care. Traditional paper based charts are impossible to mine for historical or trend information. I suggest the VA system as an initial prototype to be evaluated for a future public system.
I am for you Dr. Randy.
I ask my wife's doctor, "How much could you reduce your fees if the government was not involved?" "At least 30% - Ahh! Maybe more, I would have to look into it."
• Saw my family doctor yesterday. His partner was there in the hall and I ask both my question. Doc's partner is the animated one, and with hands spreading out in both directions and commented. “Huge,” and using the same jesture again, “Huge.” I looked at my doctor and he was nodding, "Yes." His partner said, “You also need to ask about, malpractice insurance. A collegue of ours was sued for malpractice and he had to pay $10,000 to have the suit investigated. The suit was found without merit. He was not reimbursed the $ 10,000 and his malpractice insurance went UP."
Being not guilty sure costs a lot of money and sure increases the costs of medical care.
There are cost savings for medical care! The big savings in Obama Health Care Reform will continue to be eaten up by government mandates, I do believe. And you are right about the hospital EMR and something things do not work well. There is the human error and speed factor, since haste also makes errors plus the 12 hour shifts. Construction Management taught me; 8 hours not few if any errors, 10 hours errors go up and 12 hours they really go up.
Thanks so much for the information -- I now have a far greater sense of urgency about EMR, and am glad to know it's part of the stimulus, and not laying dormant until future health care policy is (hopefully) passed and implemented. >> My key question, not addressed by the study write-up, is what happened to the 18% of responders who did NOT indicate that EMR had a positive effect on decisions. To what degree were the experiences negative, and for what reasons?...
Submitted by Cynthia S : June 10, 9:45am
I have experience with electronic records as the wife of a patient at the Cleveland Clinic. The ability to keep everything from blood work to echo cardiograms to surgical history in one place, accessible to any computer in any doctor's office or nurses station is spectacular. It also means tests can be emailed to hometown docs in no time.
I don't know as much about the privacy issues that trouble some, especially issues relating to the "medical history credit card" concept but I'm sure there's a way around them - and that would also help in situations like car accidents or other disasters where instant access to history could save lives. If you are on blood thinners or allergic to penicillin it's hard to first responders to learn that. A card in the wallet would make a huge difference.
It's apparently enormously expensive to install in a single or group practice so perhaps there could be a tax incentive for those who make the investment, since it would help everyone.
Submitted by Tarun S : June 10, 11:52am
The government should subsidize the cost of switching to electronic records, it already subsidizes switching from analog to digital tv signals and I don't see how this situation is different aside from the fact that it is much more important and could have serious benefits as far as efficiency and saving peoples lives.
Submitted by Amy R : June 10, 1:53pm
Regarding the privacy issue, what's more private? A piece of paper lying on someone's desk or a password-protected, encrypted electronic file?
I agree that some of the federal funding for healthcare reform definitely needs to go towards offsetting the costs of converting to electronic health system. I think cost is one of the main reasons why healthcare providers do not want to switch to electronic systems.
I also think some of the funding should be used to educate healthcare providers about the benefits (financial and clinical) of converting to electronic systems. This will go a long way towards making our healthcare system more efficient and reduce costs in the long run.
Submitted by Randy R : June 10, 8:38pm
I am a solo family practice doc and these numbers are ridiculous. They are polling the very small number of physicians who had place EMR in their offices at the time of the survey, in other words doctors who liked it enough to be early adopters and shell out a bunch of money for it.
I have used EMR in the hospital and there are things it does very well, but also things it does very poorly. Until EMRs have advanced enough to improve efficiency and/or profitability in the office setting they make no sense for the majority of physicians, especially small offices.
Submitted by Tod L : June 11, 12:11am
Cynthia:
I enjoyed your comment. It turns out that there is an incentive for doctors to install electronic medical records passed as part of the stimulus bill recently. The incentives start at $18,000 per doctor and go down over time, to incent earlier rollout.
Submitted by Jen L : June 16, 12:57pm
Last Friday, I witnessed a women and her son arguing (very audibly) with a pharmacist over how long she had to wait for her two prescriptions to be processed. Apparently, she had been waiting for 45 minutes. The reasons for the hold-up? 1) The pharmacist could not read one of the prescriptions due to the doctor's illegible handwriting and she was waiting for him to call her back to clarify the prescription. And 2, the doctor prescribed a medication that is not covered by her health plan.
I am sure this happens everday in every pharmacy in America. This situation is a colossal waste of time for the doctor, the pharmacist and the patient. Every doc in America should be leveraging the technology that is available to make prescribing safer and more efficient. Every doc in America should be ePrescribing. And our government needs to support our docs to make this happen. Subsidies are not enough. Docs need support to transistion to an "e" system, and there needs to be a more simple platform for the exchange of data...
Submitted by Anonymous h : July 2, 5:32am
The Veterans Administration has perhaps the most advanced medical records system. Having all this information to hand makes a huge difference in patient care. Traditional paper based charts are impossible to mine for historical or trend information. I suggest the VA system as an initial prototype to be evaluated for a future public system.
Submitted by John R : July 6, 11:10pm
I am for you Dr. Randy.
I ask my wife's doctor, "How much could you reduce your fees if the government was not involved?" "At least 30% - Ahh! Maybe more, I would have to look into it."
• Saw my family doctor yesterday. His partner was there in the hall and I ask both my question. Doc's partner is the animated one, and with hands spreading out in both directions and commented. “Huge,” and using the same jesture again, “Huge.” I looked at my doctor and he was nodding, "Yes." His partner said, “You also need to ask about, malpractice insurance. A collegue of ours was sued for malpractice and he had to pay $10,000 to have the suit investigated. The suit was found without merit. He was not reimbursed the $ 10,000 and his malpractice insurance went UP."
Being not guilty sure costs a lot of money and sure increases the costs of medical care.
There are cost savings for medical care! The big savings in Obama Health Care Reform will continue to be eaten up by government mandates, I do believe. And you are right about the hospital EMR and something things do not work well. There is the human error and speed factor, since haste also makes errors plus the 12 hour shifts. Construction Management taught me; 8 hours not few if any errors, 10 hours errors go up and 12 hours they really go up.
Submitted by Justin G : July 15, 11:03am
Thanks so much for the information -- I now have a far greater sense of urgency about EMR, and am glad to know it's part of the stimulus, and not laying dormant until future health care policy is (hopefully) passed and implemented. >> My key question, not addressed by the study write-up, is what happened to the 18% of responders who did NOT indicate that EMR had a positive effect on decisions. To what degree were the experiences negative, and for what reasons?...
Add a new comment