I was reading an entry in the TMBN blog aggregator entitled US Healthcare: The Best in the World! by a blogger who, like me, is a patient rather than a professional when it comes to the world of medicine. I do clinical research informatics but have nothing to do with patient care, except for sitting on the table in the examining room being poked and prodded and hopefully diagnosed, and hopefully correctly diagnosed at that.
Marc's post cited several articles in the news recently that illustrate why you should "be afraid, be very afraid" when you are in serious need of healthcare. Although he didn't cite it, Rand's report entitled The First National Report Card on Quality of Health Care in America documents the failings he describes in a frighteningly detailed and empirical manner.
I wrote about the Rand report a while ago in a post in my own blog entitled The Killer App of 21st Century Healthcare. I find myself believing ever more fervently that evidence-based medicine, and in particular prompt and reminder systems, are our best hope for improving outcomes in our healthcare system. If we can get EMRs implemented, use P&R systems to mine them for key information, and get that information in front of the care provider and the patient at the right time and place, we may yet make Marc's sarcastic post title come true.
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