Your Doctor's Screen Time Is Hobbling Health Care
spectrum.ieee.org
Cheryl Conrad's struggle to access her husband's medical records in 2006 highlights the ongoing challenges of EHR systems. Despite $100B spent, U.S. health care still faces interoperability, security, and usability issues. Will AI and new policies finally deliver on the promise of seamless, secure digital health records? #HealthTech #EHR

Twenty years after President Bush laid out his vision for electronic health records, the U.S. has spent $100 billion for systems that keep doctors and nurses glued to their screens

  • theneverfoxEnglish
    31·
    2 days ago

    Yeah, but like… Are they really? No two systems communicate, every hospital configures even the same systems to be essentially incompatible, and the system is built as if it’s all seamless

    It’s so bad. Paper records in a secure central database would be an improvement - 20 years of this and bending over harder for insurance companies is the only change

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      They’re a lot better in terms of tracking. No white out, backdating, loss in natural disaster. Better privacy as who looks is logged and requires note of reason for a non-provider to look. Tracking helps bill you yes but it can also help fight if records don’t match.

      Even if records can’t be directly imported across systems it can be sent a lot faster and easier which is important to efficient, effective care. If you stay within a given hospital/provider system integration works pretty dang well.

      Paper records are worse in many ways getting rid of them was a big push of the ACA for a reason. Obama admin did choose implementation before integration at the time but that is a reform to what exists you don’t have to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

      The insurance dildo is a mostly separate issue from ehr.

      • theneverfoxEnglish
        12·
        1 day ago

        Okay… But how much of that is realized?

        Before, you told a doctor where to call to get your past records… Now, you tell your doctor where to request your past records. If your doctor works in the same healthcare system campus, they might get them automatically, past that it might happen behind the scenes if you get a referral

        Backups are true… Except everyone has their own proprietary formats that require specific software to access the data, and if one of those companies go under, then what?

        Access controls and tracking are true, but what’s digital can be hacked or leaked. Paper is far more secure - maybe they can phish one person’s records more easily without it, but the wrong IT person (who is multiple steps removed) can leak the whole database

        I’m not saying paper is better - I’m saying electronic medical records are such a garbage fire in implementation that they bog down the healthcare part of healthcare. They eliminate jobs by automating processeses, but they end up getting rid of support staff in exchange for making the healthcare workers do more work

        And I’m not saying it couldn’t be better - I’m saying that it’s just such a mess of proprietary software and regulation that it became one more layer of wealth extraction that bogs down actual healthcare