Friday, October 03, 20082
EMRs: Not ready for prime time?
Thanks everyone for your comments on my piece on EMRs earlier this week.
It's interesting to follow the ensuing discussion around the blogosphere, and there were a few comments that caught my eye. Like this one:
When doctors are paid per encounter, that affects both their salary and the clinic's revenue stream.
I wonder indeed if doctors were paid by hour, would they be more accepting of the technology? I suspect so.
As it stands, today's EMRs are nowhere near ready for widespread use. Those wanting nationwide adoption need to realize doctors need a more polished, user-friendly product first.
It's interesting to follow the ensuing discussion around the blogosphere, and there were a few comments that caught my eye. Like this one:
Most of these computerized record systems are not ready for prime time! They have major faults - it can often take significantly more time to complete an electronic record than to dictate the same visit, dictated records often contain more nuanced information and explanations, and it is often harder to find information, at least in the system I am forced to use.It takes a good year or two for doctors to be comfortable with an electronic record system. During that time, it takes significantly longer per patient visit.
They are not as user friendly as the claim to be. Doctors are being forced to do jobs they were not trained to do, such as being the transcriptionist and billing and procedure coder.
Doctors are salaried; we are not paid by the hour. Pay us by the hour and either they will eliminate electronic records because of the extra time we need to complete them or they will be forced to invent more user friendly systems. I WANT MY PAPER CHARTS BACK!!!!
When doctors are paid per encounter, that affects both their salary and the clinic's revenue stream.
I wonder indeed if doctors were paid by hour, would they be more accepting of the technology? I suspect so.
As it stands, today's EMRs are nowhere near ready for widespread use. Those wanting nationwide adoption need to realize doctors need a more polished, user-friendly product first.
Comments
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Anonymous
The EMRs I have had contact with are beyond atrocious. Not to mention a medical-legal potential nightmare.
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jb
Two points, Kevin-
Post a Comment6:51 PM
The VA EMR may or may not be good-to-go, but what works in the VA, where docs are paid by the hour/day/month and not by the encounter, will not work in the fee for service private sector, where earnings are dictated by how many bullet points can be documented to generate a 9921x CPT code.
Your article did not mention the often noted straw man that docs are technophobic traditionalists, but I have seen it elsewhere in articles bemoaning our profession's reluctance to get with it and join the tech revolution. What is not noted by these folks is how quickly docs have moved to use technology where it really works- in imaging. It started in hospitals, but now even private medical offices are buying and using digital imaging systems because it saves time and money. We use technology when it works for us, not just for its own sake.
10:06 AM