A technologist notes some of the pitfalls obstructing widespread EMR adoption. One important point is that those behind the systems don’t know how doctors work, or what makes their lives easier.
Until they do, and can come up with systems that improve physician’s lives, resistance will continue:
A large percentage of technology professionals are about the machine. They’re about the what and the how. They’re not about the who. It’s easy to fall into the view that the system was working perfectly before people got to it. Technology is 90% people. What are they doing? What is the real need? Can we do this without adding a gadget? These are hard questions to ask, and the broken and cynical among us won’t ask them. Sometimes they’re right that no one will listen anyway.
