Just a few years ago, things were looking up for the American health care system. We were going to start finding better ways to pay for care: call it pay-for-performance (P4P), value-based purchasing (VBP), or similar terms. We were going to nudge -- or, rather, push -- providers into more clinically integrated systems (e.g., ACOs) to help improve outcomes and to control costs. And, of course, with wider use of electronic health records (EHR), we'd be able to better coordinate care and make decisions based on actual data. It all sounded very promising. Now, though -- what's that old expression about the leopard not being able to change its spots?...
Ross Koppel
See the following -
Can the Healthcare System Change Its Spots?
Chuck Lauer: An IT Boondoggle?
A recent Wall Street Journal article left me speechless. Like a lot of other people in healthcare I have been indoctrinated with the belief that unless the industry fully and enthusiastically adopts information technology, hospital and health systems will never run efficiently and be able to deliver quality healthcare to patients... Read More »
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Epic Systems Feeling Heat Over Interoperability
Epic Systems' August decision to retain a Washington lobbyist was widely seen as a sign that the leading electronic health-record system vendor is feeling political heat based on the perceived lack of interoperability between its EHR systems and other systems.
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Hazards Tied to Medical Records Rush
Subsidies given for computerizing, but no reporting required when errors cause harm
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Health Technology’s ‘Essential Critic’ Warns Of Medical Mistakes
Computer mistakes like the one that produced incorrect prescriptions for thousands of Rhode Island patients are probably far more common and dangerous than the Obama administration wants you to believe, says Drexel University’s Dr. Scot Silverstein. Read More »
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Interoperability: Quick Route To Better Care
Healthcare quality and efficiency could move forward 20 years in a matter of months if only there were true interoperability of electronic health information, according to a noted critic of the health IT industry. Read More »
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IT Iconoclasts: Experts Offer Dissent On Policy Issues, Technology Implementation
Each month, more hospitals and office-based physicians buy and use electronic medical records and other health information technologies as the U.S. presses on toward achieving the goal first articulated by President George W. Bush in 2004: providing most Americans with access to an electronic medical record within a decade... Read More »
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Most Doctors Don’t Meet U.S. Push For Electronic Records
Fewer than 1 in 10 doctors used electronic records last year to U.S. standards, according to a survey that shows the challenge facing a multibillion-dollar effort to digitize the health system for improved patient care. Read More »
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The Flaws Of Electronic Records
Drexel University's Scot Silverstein is a leading critic of the rapid switch to computerized medical charts, saying the notion that they prevent more mistakes than they cause is not proven. Read More »
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U. S. Electronic Health Record Initiative: A Backlash Growing?
There seems to be a slow but steady backlash growing among healthcare providers against the U.S. government’s $30 billion initiative to get all its citizens an electronic health record, initially set to happen by 2014 but now looking at 2020 or beyond. Read More »
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UnitedHealth Recalls Digital Health Record Software
UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) has recalled software used in hospital emergency departments in more than 20 states because of an error that caused doctor’s notes about patient prescriptions to drop out of their files. Read More »
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