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In an article in the Bradenton Herald, Bradenton, FL, I found the following passage I bolded below truly striking:
Digital doctors: Will technology help or harm?
Sept. 4, 2011
By DAVID GULLIVER
BRADENTON -- At Blake Medical Center, the prognosis for pen and paper is poor: Doctors' traditional tools for tracking cases and ordering medications and procedures are being phased out in favor of computers.
... Blake [Medical Center], which has been building its EHR system for years, launched a feature in April for doctors to enter their daily progress notes electronically. In June, it added a feature for ordering medications and procedures via computer. It's part of a national push, called hCare, by Blake's parent company HCA.
But many doctors were reluctant to give up their pens. More than 100 staff physicians signed a letter asking for the computerization project to be put on hold, saying the system is cumbersome and likely to induce errors.
Wow. Physicians with guts.
If I were an executive at this hospital, I'd make sure I were fully insured and my house were in my spouse's name, especially in lawsuit-happy Florida. If a case of patient injury or death occurs related to the EMR issues addressed in the letter from 100 doctors, that letter could end up resulting in charges of criminal negligence against the administration. A jury will not be happy with the letter being ignored, either.
The project's supporters acknowledge doctors and nurses have made mistakes as they learn the system, though they are unaware of any resulting in harm to patients. [Is that how you want your healthcare to proceed? - ed.]
In other words, no patient exposed to this experiment and its risks (a key issue here) was known to "hit the jackpot" - yet:
But they contend that, in the long run, an electronic system will be safer than using paper records -- something critics grudgingly admit.
Still, even as a $27 billion federal program is encouraging hospitals and doctors to launch EHR systems, no regulatory agency tests or regulates them. So a crucial question remains unanswered: Does it truly improve care? [Nobody really knows - e.g., see here - ed.]
Critics readily admit health IT has the
potential to improve healthcare, but that the technology is not yet nearly ready to do so, especially on a national basis. Far more work is needed. For example, the
National Research Council of the United States:
Current efforts aimed at the nationwide deployment of health care information technology (IT) will not be sufficient to achieve medical leaders' vision of health care in the 21st century and may even set back the cause, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report, based partially on site visits to eight U.S. medical centers considered leaders in the field of health care IT, concludes that greater emphasis should be placed on information technology that provides health care workers and patients with cognitive support, such as assistance in decision-making and problem-solving.
... In the long term, success will depend upon accelerating interdisciplinary research in biomedical informatics, computer science, social science, and health care engineering.
Critics also readily admit that organizations experimenting with this technology without patient informed consent, on the basis of some future good, need lessons on the ethics of human experimentation.
Risk to patients seems to be of little concern to this industry.
It also now seems that hospital executives have become so arrogant that they fail to recognize the risks to themselves in ignoring their own medical staffs on HIT issues.
Perhaps they think they will be able to simply blame the physicians, using clinicians as scapegoats, but with official site like
this now coming online ... I think that excuse will rapidly lose traction.
-- SS
scotsilv@aol.com (InformaticsMD) 19 Sep, 2011 --
Source:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/09/blake-medical-center-fla-ignores-letter.html~
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Thank you for using
rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed
RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial,
please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!
In an article in the Bradenton Herald, Bradenton, FL, I found the following passage I bolded below truly striking:
Digital doctors: Will technology help or harm?
Sept. 4, 2011
By DAVID GULLIVER
BRADENTON -- At Blake Medical Center, the prognosis for pen and paper is poor: Doctors' traditional tools for tracking cases and ordering medications and procedures are being phased out in favor of computers.
... Blake [Medical Center], which has been building its EHR system for years, launched a feature in April for doctors to enter their daily progress notes electronically. In June, it added a feature for ordering medications and procedures via computer. It's part of a national push, called hCare, by Blake's parent company HCA.
But many doctors were reluctant to give up their pens. More than 100 staff physicians signed a letter asking for the computerization project to be put on hold, saying the system is cumbersome and likely to induce errors.
Wow. Physicians with guts.
If I were an executive at this hospital, I'd make sure I were fully insured and my house were in my spouse's name, especially in lawsuit-happy Florida. If a case of patient injury or death occurs related to the EMR issues addressed in the letter from 100 doctors, that letter could end up resulting in charges of criminal negligence against the administration. A jury will not be happy with the letter being ignored, either.
The project's supporters acknowledge doctors and nurses have made mistakes as they learn the system, though they are unaware of any resulting in harm to patients. [Is that how you want your healthcare to proceed? - ed.]
In other words, no patient exposed to this experiment and its risks (a key issue here) was known to "hit the jackpot" - yet:
But they contend that, in the long run, an electronic system will be safer than using paper records -- something critics grudgingly admit.
Still, even as a $27 billion federal program is encouraging hospitals and doctors to launch EHR systems, no regulatory agency tests or regulates them. So a crucial question remains unanswered: Does it truly improve care? [Nobody really knows - e.g., see here - ed.]
Critics readily admit health IT has the
potential to improve healthcare, but that the technology is not yet nearly ready to do so, especially on a national basis. Far more work is needed. For example, the
National Research Council of the United States:
Current efforts aimed at the nationwide deployment of health care information technology (IT) will not be sufficient to achieve medical leaders' vision of health care in the 21st century and may even set back the cause, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report, based partially on site visits to eight U.S. medical centers considered leaders in the field of health care IT, concludes that greater emphasis should be placed on information technology that provides health care workers and patients with cognitive support, such as assistance in decision-making and problem-solving.
... In the long term, success will depend upon accelerating interdisciplinary research in biomedical informatics, computer science, social science, and health care engineering.
Critics also readily admit that organizations experimenting with this technology without patient informed consent, on the basis of some future good, need lessons on the ethics of human experimentation.
Risk to patients seems to be of little concern to this industry.
It also now seems that hospital executives have become so arrogant that they fail to recognize the risks to themselves in ignoring their own medical staffs on HIT issues.
Perhaps they think they will be able to simply blame the physicians, using clinicians as scapegoats, but with official site like
this now coming online ... I think that excuse will rapidly lose traction.
-- SS
scotsilv@aol.com (InformaticsMD) 19 Sep, 2011 --
Source:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/09/blake-medical-center-fla-ignores-letter.html~
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