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Major Health Organization Stops Forcing Doctors To Adopt New Technology (internalmedicinenews.com)
nbauman writes: The administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told an investors' conference that they will be backing off the unpopular requirement that doctors show "meaningful use" of their new computer systems. Andy Slavitt, acting administrator, admitted that "physician burden and frustration levels are real. Programs that are designed to improve often distract. Done poorly, measures are divorced from how physicians practice and add to the cynicism that the people who build these programs just don't get it."
Dr. James L. Madara, CEO of the American Medical Association, agreed that EHRs were having a negative impact on physicians' practices. Many physicians are spending at least two hours each workday using their EHR and may click up to 4,000 times per 8-hour shift, he said. Instead, CMS will reward health care providers for patient outcomes through the merit-based incentive pay systems created by last year's Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) legislation.CMS is calling on the private sector to create apps and analytic tools that will keep data secure while fostering true and widespread interoperability.
Dr. James L. Madara, CEO of the American Medical Association, agreed that EHRs were having a negative impact on physicians' practices. Many physicians are spending at least two hours each workday using their EHR and may click up to 4,000 times per 8-hour shift, he said. Instead, CMS will reward health care providers for patient outcomes through the merit-based incentive pay systems created by last year's Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) legislation.CMS is calling on the private sector to create apps and analytic tools that will keep data secure while fostering true and widespread interoperability.
Exactly, trying to force the tasks required for a specialized task to fit into a GUI designed by someone who has no idea of what that task actually entails is madness.
Would you do complex engineering with a checklist which looks like it was written as a first year project and which imposes the process on you, but can't me made to actually match the real world?
Hell, on numerous occasions I've been on the receiving end of some bloody accountant trying to apply his idiotic metrics to something which can't be quantified readily ... why, no, I can't quantify the way in which I will find and fix bugs in a way which is meaningful to an accountant ... and, no, your standard template document has nothing to do with be solving a tricky problem of semantics.
One size really doesn't fit all. Some sizes don't fit anybody.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The problems I have seen when around nurses and doctors is usually that the computer systems themselves are horribly done, and the software is even worse at that. (a common issue I have heard is "this computers going so slow", or "the networks down")
It is basically the reason there is no paperless office because software and hardware simply isn't as easy to use as paper, nor is it as stable and reliable.
This is even more apparent in medical situations due to the sort of data they manage.
The cost to make a very reliable computer-based system is incredibly higher than paper and cabinets in every department.
Medical systems need to be stupidly reliable so that cost balloons to even higher values than a typical systems installation in even large business.
Until developer start to make programs that mimic how easy it is to use paper, it will never happen any time soon.
There are plenty of great programs for editing all kinds of stuff, but so many of them blow 10 kinds of ass.
Worse yet, most of those are ones done by professionals for large businesses. Half-assed ActiveX crap was one of the worst cases of this. These days it is more half-assed Java, PHP and MySQL.
Good use of tooltips, an easy-to-access help system (the question-mark feature in some programs where you click it, then click an interface item, is the best in that regard), DESCRIPTIVE menu items.
So many programs lack these very basic things.
You shouldn't NEED to do much learning when using an interface.
If you do, you shouldn't need to read some included PDF or some other readme crap, that is distracting and the user might not have a clue how to describe a visual element on the screen. Having to look through pictures of the UI instead of JUST USING THE UI is stupid, all kinds of stupid.
JUST BUILD A HELP SYSTEM.
tl;dr.
If a system isn't intuitive, it is shit.
This is the reason most people hate upgraded systems.
It is the reason WinXP is still a significant OS today despite being over a decade old.
As usual, change for the sake of change pisses everyone off, not just autistic geeks and Luddites.