Health Care Renewal blog
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Electronic Health Records: First, Do No Harm?
EHRs are commonly promoted as boosting patient safety, but are we all being fooled? InformationWeek Radio investigates. Read More »
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How EHR Design Can Affect Patient Safety
Besides the importance of physician happiness when using an EHR, using design principles that maximize user intuition and presentation of relevant information, there is one aspect of health care information systems that should never be overlooked: patient safety. Read More »
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On the Need for Human-Centered Design in EHRs
Health information technology (HIT) has become the hottest political issue in Washington. The healthcare industry in the United States is facing a crisis as medical facilities have spent hundreds of billions of dollars implementing electronic health record (EHR) systems, yet patients and the physicians and nurses that care for them are seeing few benefits. Congress has been holding hearings focused on detailing the problems and trying to write legislation that will provide a solution to the crisis. The HIT interoperability bill drafted by Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-TX) is one example. These are welcome first steps. However, none of the bills currently before Congress, and none of the hearings, are addressing the two most important issues facing medical providers today. These are lack of EHR usability, and the inability to have a patients’ entire medical record at the point of care.
Is Digitizing Healthcare Making It Less Safe?
Join InformationWeek Radio on Tuesday, July 1, at 2:00 PM EST for a discussion with Scot M. Silverstein, M.D., a consultant and professor in the Drexel University informatics program who is a leading critic of the claims made for EHR systems and researches the pitfalls of the software and the way it is implemented. He blogs at Health Care Renewal as InformaticsMD. One of the issues he highlights is that there is no systemattic tracking of medical errors associated with functionality or usability issues of EHRs, making it hard to judge whether their net effect has been positive or negative. Yet there are troubling signs, in everything from academic studies to malpractice claims, that the risks of EHRs have been underestimated and the rush to implement these systems may be misguided. Read More »
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