Slashdot Mirror
Why Electronic Health Records Aren't More Usable (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: There are plenty of things wrong with Electronic Health Records (EHRs), writes Ken Terry. Among them: 'The records are hard to read because they're full of irrelevant boilerplates..., [a]lerts frequently fire for inconsequential reasons..., and EHRs from different vendors are not interoperable with each other.' But those are all just symptoms of the underlying (and unsurprising) problem: '[T]hey are designed to support billing more than patient care.' A recent study (login required) found that, of 41 EHR vendors that released public reports, fewer than half used an industry-standard user-centered design process. This despite a requirement by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT that developers perform usability tests as part of a certification process that makes their EHRs eligible for the government's EHR incentive program.
Sounds like the deeper problem, and the solution, would be to somehow BAN all Lobbyists!!!!
I wonder if there would be any way to do so...without stamping on freedom of speech issues...?
If nothing else, maybe make the requirement to meet with your congress critter, it HAS to be in their home state, AND it has to be public, no private meetings?
That, at least...might help...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yup. Some years ago, my ex-wife and daughters were LPN and CNA. A couple of them worked in an elder care facility.
Proclamation came down from on high that they will be using a new touchscreen system to log patient interactions.
Said touchscreen was mounted flat to the wall, at a height usable only for someone about 5' 9" or taller. Of COURSE most of these women were not that tall. In addition to the multitude of clicks and verifications to log one scrip or treatment, they literally had to get a stepstool to use the damn thing. Safety? What's that?
Bullshit. Time entry and coding is not nearly as important as the f*cking final lab report when it it comes to radiology. Are you competent to read the scan and not KILL someone in the process.
THAT is the liability issue with a radiology department.
Did you miss the cancer that managed to migrate into someone's lymph nodes from their kidneys?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No, he just thinks he's smarter than the Supreme Court and his interpretation of the Constitution is superior.
The reason that the government sometimes requires people to purchase a product or service is that without a law forcing people to get with the fucking program, we can't move forward as a people. Without helmet laws people wouldn't wear helmets, because they're stupid/cheap/selfish. Without seat belt laws, lots of people wouldn't wear the belts, increasing medical costs for everyone. Without mandatory car insurance, people would get wiped out when some drunken asshole plows into them.
The problem here is that for-profit companies can participate in our health care system. Their primary function is to make money, not improve patient care. Of COURSE company A is going to push their format which is incompatible with any other because then they lock in their customers, giving them no choice but to pay them ridiculous amounts of money in the future. EHR, done correctly, has distinct advantages, but without being forced to use one specific format by law, we have all this bullshit. So, either the state mandates a format, which I'm sure GP would hate, or we all suffer. But! So long as the "collective" is a thing, this guy won't be happy.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
But who are you to decide how I should live my life?
Without mandatory car insurance, people would get wiped out when some drunken asshole plows into them.
Chances are, you're gonna find you should have had insurance the whole time. That is kind of the point of insurance. And that drunk driver that just drove you off the road wasn't insured in the first place. My wife, mom and daughters were involved with a hit/run and it has nearly ruined us, because insurance doesn't pay for everything, especially if you don't have enough to pay for the injuries.
The problem is that do gooders love to think they know how to solve the worlds problems, don't actually solve anything and create a whole new set of problems to solve (which they only know how to solve). Healthcare Insurance is a function of supply and demand, and the fact that ObamaCare increased demand (and costs) it didn't address supply. Not only that, it restricted the pricing of the marketplace and is driving the whole industry (Insurance/healthcare) into an unmitigated crisis. Of course, this was either by design or by incompetence, but you'll suggest the fix is more of the same, government interference into private enterprise.
Because in the end, you can't admit that you made things worse with your scheme to fix it. So you'll fix it till it is really broken.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That's the part that's dynamite on paper but doesn't work in the real world.
So ok, let's see how we got here. Kid gets sick? Send Uncle Henry up the road to fetch the doctor, he makes his diagnosis, take two of these and stop on by in the morning, give the doctor one of the chickens, oh and how has Mrs. McGruder been doing?
Let's move forward to the era of Progress! Now we have so many wonderful new kinds of medicine. I heard they've even figured out a machine so that will keep Ma alive even after her kidneys have fully failed!
Oh, gosh. That costs way more than a chicken. Good thing I bought insurance for the whole family.
This is the point in the tech tree where you unlock Big Negotiators. $insurer figures out that they can negotiate a lower price with the hospital because they have half a million subscribers by threatening the hospital and local docs they'll no longer cover patients at current prices.
So far so good, right? Well, something doesn't smell right, and this is where it goes completely rotten. $insurer also figures out that they can charge the man off the street an arm and a leg. At this point, we're still at parity with auto insurance.
No so fast! here comes $big_company who can also pack a wallop in negotiation. Lower the premiums for my employees or I'll switch to $competitor_insurer. Naturally, $big_company wants to use this as a negotiating tactic with employees as well, so $big_company now offers it as a benefit.
Win-win or are we racing to the bottom yet? As I've mentioned in other posts, since the patient no longer sees the bill, and insurance companies aren't competing for individuals, everybody can just start jacking up their prices. American pay three times what the rest of the developed world does for worse outcomes when taken as a whole. Tragedy of the commons.
The only legislation that was needed to fix the race-to-the-bottom, must-be-an-employee-to-have-affordable-insurance disease the healthcare system would have been to require insurers to make all of their plans available to the general public on an individual basis, like car insurance (probably exceptions, but I'm not aware of any employer that covers car insurance, nor am I aware of car insurance plans that cover routine maintenance).
Ah, the do-gooders, the bleeding hearts, and the weak-willed masses that don't understand TANSTAAFL!
I don't know what to tell you. I'd love to live in a libertarian paradise with you and every other libertarian here on these discussion sites! Honest, hard-working, would never do something like use money to buy votes, critical thinking paragon of virtue are we! (Actually not sure I'm being sarcastic or not.)
The libertarian paradise is a childish fantasy and utterly unworkable. I'm afraid I'm getting more liberal the older I get.
Here's my proposal. We need to stop the government from shitting all over the constitution and hold them to that document before we get to that last liberty box only to be used when the other three have failed.
I get tired of the bogeyman of oh noes! with single payer healthcare you need to wait weeks to see a specialist! Well, you know what, a friend of mine recently transitioned to live as a woman, and the endocrinologist (the one that didn't go "religious objection!" at least) was booked six weeks out. I've already posted my difficulties even finding a GP in another discussion because of "religious objection!" and also "this women's health initiative had to shut down and it's all your fault because you're a man in IT and want to control women's bodies!" The aggregate health outcomes of single payer speak for themselves, and single pay also correct re-aligns the interests of health care providers with the patients' interests.
Sorry this isn't a libertarian paradise. This is the real world, and that's how the real world works. I don't want you to pay for my sex change or meds, and you probably do something I disapprove of with medical consequences I don't want