From the FierceHealthIT newsletter:
Acknowledging that the body of scientific evidence on the efficacy of health IT still is rather scant, national health IT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal is anticipating a flood of new research as a result of the federal stimulus that encourages wide adoption of electronic health records. To date, most of the research has focused on health IT in specific environments, such as a single hospital, physician office or integrated delivery network, but the stimulus will help put EHRs in new settings that haven't been studied.
It's amazing to have this kind of admission from the person at the epicenter of a multi-billion dollar effort to compel adoption of health IT "solutions". Given all the complaints about EMR systems getting in the way of providing healthcare (e.g., this guest post by Winslow W. Murdoch MD on the KevinMD blog), especially from primary care physicians who take part in the vast majority of patient-provider encounters. From the KevinMD post:
Currently, data can only be entered on a patient by patient basis. Unless the relevant medical decision making data is properly vetted and reviewed by the patient, with one on one help by a clinician, it becomes garbage in. An experienced primary care clinician who knows the patient best and has all medical information flowing through their office is the best person to input and screen new information important for medical decisions. They would also potentially shoulder the lion’s share of the burden of data input responsibility and therefore cost of implementing an EMR. These are the same practices that are the most financially insolvent, many on the brink of shutting down.
I am a great believer in health informatics, but I want to see it widely disseminated if and only if the systems enhance the quality of delivered healthcare and the productivity of providers. Key components of the vision I have in mind include, but are not limited to: intuitive and adaptable user interfaces for providers, suitable for real-time use in patient encounters; patient empowerment in maintaining the accuracy of health records; convenient (and billable) patient-provider electronic communications media; and perhaps most importantly, a holistic, episode-based approach to health records.
I am starting to get involved with an effort I believe has a lot of promise in realizing the potential of health IT, the Clinical Groupware Collaborative (CGC). Microsoft's Bill Crounse, MD recently posted on this subject in the Microsoft Healthblog (Learn more about “Clinical Groupware”); Microsoft is a charter member of the CGC. I'll post more about the CGC as events unfold.
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