Comments on: Suffer Me No Inefficiency

By: Harriet

Harriet — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:58:24 +0000

OK, I have to weight in…Electronic medical records was one of the projects I worked on in my previous life. Trying to standardize information across the medical profession so that it can be exchanged is a nightmare. Believe it or not, they’ve made a lot of progress in the past 10 years. Unfortunately, a lot of the redundancy (why they ask you for the same info many times) has to do with lawyers and privacy issues. While everyone wants information to be easily accessible and exchangeable, the other side wants to protect your information and keep it private. I think they’re more comfortable with faxed/scanned documents since they can more easily prove that you completed the info (if needed) than data entered on in PDF format. I was encouraged the last few times I saw new (younger) doctors who actively used technology while taking my information and sharing test results. Believe me, I’m equally frustrated when dealing with my insurance company–maybe a bit more sympathetic knowing about the challenges…

By: Robin Heyden

Robin Heyden — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:07:28 +0000

OK, I’ve got one for you, Alan. Just yesterday, I took my high-school-aged son to the pediatrician for a check up. As I signed him in the receptionist handed me a sealed manilla envelope. Hmmm….what’s this? I opened it to discover my son’s immunization records sent from Palo Alto, California. Or, I should say a really bad copy of a fax of his immunization records. Attched to it was a bad copy of a letter that I had sent to the California doctor’s office in June of 2008 (!) requesting the records, in order to fill out a required form (a pdf that I printed, and filled in by hand), for a school trip he was going on. Aiyiyi.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:23:54 +0000

Rats… I tried for the fifty bucks… No luck!

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:50:34 +0000

As long as we’re set in the 40 hour work week model of employment, we’ll make up stuff for people to do during the 40 hours

By: Alan levine

Alan levine — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:45:36 +0000

Obviously (at least to my simple mind) the problem/solution is not technolgy alone– I’m already seeing a Pogo cartoon line here.

I fail to grasp how businesses can tolerate such wasteful amounts of inefficiency

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:10:21 +0000

We have electronic health records now, and it’s even worse. I won’t even go into the mistakes they’ve made with my prescriptions. A few appointments ago the doc asked if I had been losing weight. I told her maybe a few pounds. She said, “A few, it looks like 60 pounds!” Hello? 60 pounds in one month? She couldn’t make the change, because the typo was input by someone else, so I became part of their learning. I’ve also had my B/P entered incorrectly, and it’s now impossible to say, “Remember when I had that cough, 18 months ago? This feels just like it.” They used to be able to just flip through the chart and easily grab stuff like that. The doc says she’s been working 18 hour days since they implemented the system in May.
Of course, the instructional material I’m working on right now is in HealthIT, so it’s nice to have case studies In case you’re interested, there’s a lot of activity around this on Twitter. Just search for #HealthIT #EMR #EHR #PHR

By: Gardner

Gardner — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:46:25 +0000

I agree completely.

What to do about it is another question.

I typically call on education to solve problems like these. You know, get people to think better, and they’ll do better. I still believe that’s true, but brother, my faith gets sorely tested at times like these.

Keep blogging the good fight, my brother.