EHR Backlash

See the following -

HIMSS13: A Fork in the Road - How Patients & Payment Are Forcing 'Open' Health IT

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn | iHealthBeat | March 11, 2013

This year feels like a fork in the road at HIMSS13, with disruptive forces of patients, digital health, mobility and open standards driving innovation and renewed energy at the annual conference...Without transparency (in health IT and health finance) and data liquidity, bending the cost curve will continue to elude the U.S. health system. At the recently concluded annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference in New Orleans, 34,696 got to experience a yin and yang vibe that embodies the disruption that the health care IT industry is undergoing. That is, the full-on face-off between developers of health IT that have been long-closed to data liquidity and those vendors innovating on open standards and cloud-based platforms. Read More »

Hospital Technology is the New Determinant of Patient Satisfaction According to EHR User Survey

Press Release | Black Book Research | April 20, 2018

Electronic health record technology and the ways that providers use it to communicate with patients and physicians is affecting how satisfied stakeholders are with their hospital organizations. The insight is revealed within the eighth annual Black Book industry surveys of inpatient EHR users including hospital staff, managers, networked physicians and patient panels. “Involvement with healthcare consumers through technologies is proving to be a significant element of patient satisfaction,” said Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book Research.

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How disparate EHR systems, lack of interoperability contribute to physician stress, burnout

Jeff Lagasse | Healthcare IT News | July 2, 2018

Physician burnout is an increasingly common issue in healthcare, and there are a lot of factors that can contribute to it. Long hours, paperwork and the burden of administrative tasks all play a part. But electronic medical records can also contribute to burnout, largely because each system is different. With disparate electronic health record systems comes an added hardship for physicians, affecting their work -- and their reimbursement. Compounding the issue is that many physicians are no longer limited to just one facility. Many handle rounds at multiple hospitals and/or practices, and if each has its own EMR system that doesn't necessarily communicate with the others, it can be a growing headache.

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How To Avoid EHR Backlash In The Patient Experience, Clinic

Robert Green | EHR Intelligence | May 28, 2013

The term “EHR backlash” has been used recently to describe the challenges and feelings that physicians associate with their EHR adoptions. It has even reached the point of having its own hashtag on Twitter, #EHRBacklash, with plenty of interest to draw even more attention. [...] However, the term “backlash” may not be the word that best fits the current discourse.... Read More »

Is Cloud Faxing the Solution to the Health IT Usability and Interoperability Crisis?

The Healthcare industry is in profound crisis as the HITECH Act of 2009 led medical facilities across the United States to spend in excess of $3 trillion on the purchase and implementation of expensive electronic health records (EHRs) under the Meaningful Use program. Yet, the most fundamental goals of electronic records Nirvana that were promised have not been achieved. For multiple reasons, EHRs have turned out to lack usability and be non-interoperable. In fact, most monopoly EHR vendors are engaged in what is commonly called “data blocking.” In most cases physicians are unable to obtain medical records for the patients they are seeing and patients have a hard time getting a hold of their own medical records. That means that the medical records are not available at the most important moment, the caregiver/patient encounter, and are not available to the patients themselves and their family members.

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Is EHR Dissatisfaction Driving Future Investments In HIT?

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | June 4, 2014

Capital investments in health information technology and telecommunications continue to account for the largest portion of health system expenditures and are expected to remain sizeable through 2017, according to a survey of C-suite executives by Premier, Inc...

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Is Open Source Tolven the "Dark Horse" of Health IT Platforms?

Is there perhaps a “dark horse” in the EHR field, just poised to challenge the overhyped, slow, clumsy, and expensive leaders of the EHR heat? All the troubles with lack of interoperability and usability of proprietary EHRs have suddenly put the spotlight on what may be the EHR dark horse, the open source Tolven Platform.

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Is The 1.5+ Trillion Dollar HITECH Act a Failure?

Hopefully, the public statements made by President Obama and Vice President Biden will lead to a public debate over the monumental problems that the HITECH Act and proprietary EHR vendors have caused the American people. While the press continues to report the figure of $35 billion as the cost of implementing EHRs, that figure does not tell the entire story. Perhaps the next step is to provide accountability and transparency. That would start with firm numbers regarding the real costs of EHR implementations forced on an unprepared healthcare system by the HITECH Act.

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Is the EHR Market Saturated?

“Hey, the EHR market is saturated, we don’t really think there is any play left there,”  this comment came from a reputable venture capitalist (VC) in the healthcare industry.  And I sat there wondering what it is that he is talking about. Every single day I am taking calls from doctors who want an EHR that suits them, and they are willing to pay for it.

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Joint Commission Issues Sentinel Event Alert On EHR Safety Risks

Press Release | The Joint Commission | March 31, 2015

Safe use of health information technology (health IT) is the focus of a new Sentinel Event Alert released today by The Joint Commission. The new alert examines the contributing factors to sentinel events that are health IT-related and includes suggested solutions to be implemented by health care organizations. It builds on Sentinel Event Alert, Issue 42, issued in 2008, which focused on safely implementing health information and converging technologies. Read More »

LinkedIn users: EHRs plagued by poor design, clinical disconnect

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | October 7, 2013

It doesn’t take much to get clinicians to express their opinions about EHRs riddled with inefficient, cumbersome, and frustrating interfaces.  EHR backlash is at an all-time high, so EHRintelligence asked LinkedIn users how we can turn the dissatisfaction around.  The resulting comments pointed to a fundamental disconnect between design and daily use, and unleashed significant criticism of the government’s push for EHR adoption before vendors could produce a product worth using. Read More »

MaineHealth Facing Financial Debacle due to Proprietary EHR Install

The scenario: A sophisticated medical center health system begins to roll out an expensive proprietary EHR and shortly thereafter sustains an operating loss, leaving no choice but to put the implementation on hold. The operating loss is attributed to “unintended financial consequences” directly related to buying a very expensive EHR system. This is exactly the situation at MaineHealth, who selected Epic. Read More »

New $1.2b Partners Epic System a Prescription for Frustration

Priyanka Dayal McCluskey | Boston Globe | May 17, 2016

The demands of the new system are so taxing and time-consuming, Lydon said, that the computer has come between her and her patients.More than once, Lydon says, she has burst into tears on the drive home. “I know people throughout the hospital, and they find the same thing: it’s tedious, labor intensive, and you feel like you can’t do what you want to do,” said Lydon, a nurse for more than 30 years...

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Not All Snake Oil Is Digital

A different take on "snake oil" in health care was a thoughtful piece in Health Affairs, by David Newman and Amanda Frost, discussing the quality measurement morass in health care. They cite a study that estimated we spend some $15.4b annually collecting several thousand different quality measures, few of which have any meaning to consumers and all-too-few of which seem to be used to actively improve quality. It isn't that they don't think we should be measuring quality -- far from it -- but, rather: "Patients should not be able to choose substandard quality care, and substandard quality care should not be allowed to be offered in the market." Now, there's a novel concept!

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Nurses Warn Epic EHR Causes Serious Disruptions to Safe Patient Care at East Bay Hospitals

Press Release | California Nurses Association | July 11, 2013

Introduction of a new electronic medical records system at Sutter corporation East Bay hospitals has produced multiple problems with safe care delivery that has put patients at risk, charged the California Nurses Association today...In over 100 reports submitted by RNs at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and Oakland, nurses cited a variety of serious problems with the new system, known as Epic. The reports are in union forms RNs submit to management documenting assignments they believe to be unsafe. Read More »