One of the topics’s that I’ve written most about, and also do a considerable amount of non-clinical consulting work on, is how we can improve health care information technology and electronic medical records. As they currently exist, there are unfortunately many drawbacks to health care IT systems, and they have as yet failed to fulfill their immense promise.
I’m not a technophobe by any stretch of the imagination. I embrace technologies and see the enormous benefits that they have brought to humanity over the last couple of decades. But I like good information technology. I’m a fan of technology that makes life quicker, more efficient, and raises industry standards. The problem with health care IT, however, is that there are way too many negative aspects to our current crop of systems. If you were to ask any doctor or nurse today what their biggest daily frustrations are, health care IT would be at or near top of the list. I produced the above video to explain succinctly where it’s all gone wrong, and how we need to work towards better and more user-friendly IT solutions that help restore the doctor-patient relationship and increase direct patient care time.
To underscore this whole issue, I was struck by one recent Facebook post by a friend of mine, who took a picture of herself and her colleagues working in their clinic. The picture had a row of physicians sitting at computer terminals, with the caption: “Busy at work right now.”
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