Comments (0) [ Submitted by Dr. Libby ]
If you’re shopping for an EHR system, you might appreciate this advice from a couple of thousand colleagues. This is a report from AAFP received responses from 2,012 EHR users.
[ Dr. Libby submitted an article from the Wall Street Journal that may be of interest to the group ]
By Jacob Goldstein – April 13, 2010
Digital medical records come with some big promises.
They’ll improve patient care, in part by eliminating many errors. They’ll stem the soaring growth in costs. They’ll make health care more efficient.
Those are the promises, anyway. The question is, how can we make sure the technology actually delivers? How can we make sure the digitization of medical records does everything its advocates believe is possible?
The latest evidence suggests we have to search harder for the answers. A 2009 study in the American Journal of Medicine found that hospitals with more-advanced electronic systems fared no better than other hospitals on measures of administrative costs, on average, even if the systems “might modestly improve” performance on certain measures of the quality of care.
Meanwhile, many doctors and nurses say they’re frustrated with the technology. While some say electronic records have improved the way they practice medicine, many others say the systems are time-consuming distractions that take away from patient care.
So, how can health-care providers get the most out of these new systems? We interviewed doctors, executives and information-technology experts who have extensive hands-on experience with electronic records and have found the best ways to make them work. Here are some of the lessons they shared.
(Can Technology Cure Health Care? - PDF version of article)
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