Monday, July 19, 2010
New Digital Networks
There is a lot of tax-payer money being thrown at electronic medical records lately. While the new emphasis on EHR's is certainly welcome, some caution needs to be exercised. The subject news article from my friends at the Huffington Post Investigative Fund is talking about a new EHR in the delta of Mississippi, but then goes on to describe a telemedicine application to the EHR, and not the EHR itself.
The article states the hope that by incorporating EHR systems the cost of medical care will be reduced. Understand plainly that electronic medical records do not cut cost, they increase it. With the increase in cost comes a quantum improvement in the quality of health care. Now this improvement in quality (which also means better communication between provider and patient even when they are not co-located) can reduce the number of office visits, and the number of hospital stays, by making the patient more aware of how to take care of themselves. The best way to cut medical bills is to stay healthy, and that can be the real benefit to EHRs and their telemedicine applications.
Another bit of caution is as old as time - buyer beware! When you publicly state you are about to throw billions of dollars at any widget, then every widget in the world will appear. Some will work, some will partly work, and some just won't work at all. This was a problem before the "stimulus" which has sky-rocketed the deficit, and it is, and will continue to be, a major problem in the near future. Electronic medical records are NOT plug-and-play, and can take decades to get right. In an earlier post I pointed to another Huffington Post article on a hospital in Cleveland that took over ten years to get their EHR right. And the only way they were sure of what they were getting was to build it themselves.
EHRs are great things - when they work, and when your staff has been properly trained on their use, and when you don't have to wait two years to get a "fix" to something that doesn't work just quite right for your particular location. A little Teddy Roosevelt would be good here - "Walk softly and carry a big stick."
The article states the hope that by incorporating EHR systems the cost of medical care will be reduced. Understand plainly that electronic medical records do not cut cost, they increase it. With the increase in cost comes a quantum improvement in the quality of health care. Now this improvement in quality (which also means better communication between provider and patient even when they are not co-located) can reduce the number of office visits, and the number of hospital stays, by making the patient more aware of how to take care of themselves. The best way to cut medical bills is to stay healthy, and that can be the real benefit to EHRs and their telemedicine applications.
Another bit of caution is as old as time - buyer beware! When you publicly state you are about to throw billions of dollars at any widget, then every widget in the world will appear. Some will work, some will partly work, and some just won't work at all. This was a problem before the "stimulus" which has sky-rocketed the deficit, and it is, and will continue to be, a major problem in the near future. Electronic medical records are NOT plug-and-play, and can take decades to get right. In an earlier post I pointed to another Huffington Post article on a hospital in Cleveland that took over ten years to get their EHR right. And the only way they were sure of what they were getting was to build it themselves.
EHRs are great things - when they work, and when your staff has been properly trained on their use, and when you don't have to wait two years to get a "fix" to something that doesn't work just quite right for your particular location. A little Teddy Roosevelt would be good here - "Walk softly and carry a big stick."
