The EMR, we are told, will help cut healthcare costs. When medical records are converted into digital format, data will be instantaneously available to all providers caring for the patient. Clinicians will have carte blanche access to previous laboratory and radiological studies, thus insuring that such investigations are not performed repeatedly or needlessly. Data will be collated and scrutinized to insure that standards of care are met and that medical errors are eliminated. Electronic billing will become the norm. One day patients might even be able to schedule their own appointments online. Somehow all this will serve to lower costs and improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery.
Indeed it might. But in my mind healthcare delivery is something different than the practice of medicine….>>more
My latest essay, Medicine in the time of the EMR, is now posted at the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine blog, a companion blog for the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine.
There’s no stopping this “digital snow ball”, as it will continue to gain size and momentum as time passes …