Leaving aside the virtual reality issue, this statement "In addition, reporting of an event, happy or sad, can be consumed as entertainment and not as an occasion for reflection." is valid.
Re:Electronic Health Records is very hard
on
IT and Health Care
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· Score: 1
This post makes a number of generalizations that need to be addressed:
Medical Doctors are in General very difficult to work with. There are a lot of factors...
1. Society says they are the smartest people around. They think that too. So when they go out of their area of expertise and they don't know exactly what is happening, they will avoid trying to learn about it but become defensive about it. And will not give respect to people who do know about such areas and let them ask the right questions so they can fix the problem.
As a doctor I could make the same generalization about people in IT with equal validity. (I can give a patient potentially lethal drugs if used incorrectly but I am not allowed to install firefox on my computer at work.) Your statement describes almost any group who's work requires a high level expertise in a specific area.
2. Doctors are trained in medical not business,...
Correct - Med school 6 years, intern x 2 yrs, specialty training 5 years. I have been studying for some exam or the other during the entire period. Really cuts into my quake arena and UrbanTerror time. With some exceptions most physicians know very little about IT.
3.... Good EMR and PM (Practice Management) system are not cheap (like most professional apps), and there is a sticker shock for paying thousands of dollars for software, even for a glorified access database...
In my experience in hospitals, medical record systems are very expensive, have poor user interfaces, are not flexible enough to deal with widely varying requirements of different specialties and does not always comprehensively tie in all the departments. There is a degree of vendor tie in that makes MS look benign.
4. Open Source is not an option. Sorry Open Source fans. In a career where you can get sued in an instant you need somewhere to point the lawyers away from you. (Hence part of the high cost for medical software) Yes this is a lame excuse for Microsoft (who makes general use software) but for specialty software companies they are under the guns of lawyers all the time.
It may be the only option. What is needed is in fact an open source system which can be modified to suit individual needs and is not tied to a particular company. What is required is a company to modify & maintain the system.
What happens after you have spent a large sum of money, you have several years worth of medical information in a proprietery database and the company goes bankrupt? Who do you sue then?
5. MD are known to make a lot of money. This doesn't always attract good, nice, or even smart people. Remember "What do you call the person who graduated with the lowest score in Med School?" answer "Doctor". A lot of people are just in it for the money. They may say they like helping people but they are in it for the money (How a lot of doctors in California will prescribe "medical marijuana" for "problems sleeping") They will be so tight with their money and be blind to all benefits such systems will have, and will not pay unless things work the way THEY want it to.
Don't shy away from propagating stereotypes. With years spent on a training salary, litigation, odd &long hours of work vs money the equation does not pan out. Medicine is not a way to get rich quick. What does happen is MD's finishing specialty training with large student loans which need to get paid off.
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Leaving aside the virtual reality issue, this statement "In addition, reporting of an event, happy or sad, can be consumed as entertainment and not as an occasion for reflection." is valid.
I have recently bought a Netwalker PC-Z1 as a replacement for my Zaurus PDA. Ubuntu Jaunty seems to work well on this device. Here is one review: http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/27/sharps-5-inch-pc-z1-netwalker-honors-the-zaurus-legacy/ Unfortunately it is aimed only at the Japanese market & needs to be converted to English.
This post makes a number of generalizations that need to be addressed:
Medical Doctors are in General very difficult to work with. There are a lot of factors...
1. Society says they are the smartest people around. They think that too. So when they go out of their area of expertise and they don't know exactly what is happening, they will avoid trying to learn about it but become defensive about it. And will not give respect to people who do know about such areas and let them ask the right questions so they can fix the problem.
As a doctor I could make the same generalization about people in IT with equal validity. (I can give a patient potentially lethal drugs if used incorrectly but I am not allowed to install firefox on my computer at work.) Your statement describes almost any group who's work requires a high level expertise in a specific area.
2. Doctors are trained in medical not business, ...
Correct - Med school 6 years, intern x 2 yrs, specialty training 5 years. I have been studying for some exam or the other during the entire period. Really cuts into my quake arena and UrbanTerror time. With some exceptions most physicians know very little about IT.
3. ... Good EMR and PM (Practice Management) system are not cheap (like most professional apps), and there is a sticker shock for paying thousands of dollars for software, even for a glorified access database...
In my experience in hospitals, medical record systems are very expensive, have poor user interfaces, are not flexible enough to deal with widely varying requirements of different specialties and does not always comprehensively tie in all the departments. There is a degree of vendor tie in that makes MS look benign.
4. Open Source is not an option. Sorry Open Source fans. In a career where you can get sued in an instant you need somewhere to point the lawyers away from you. (Hence part of the high cost for medical software) Yes this is a lame excuse for Microsoft (who makes general use software) but for specialty software companies they are under the guns of lawyers all the time.
It may be the only option. What is needed is in fact an open source system which can be modified to suit individual needs and is not tied to a particular company. What is required is a company to modify & maintain the system. What happens after you have spent a large sum of money, you have several years worth of medical information in a proprietery database and the company goes bankrupt? Who do you sue then?
5. MD are known to make a lot of money. This doesn't always attract good, nice, or even smart people. Remember "What do you call the person who graduated with the lowest score in Med School?" answer "Doctor". A lot of people are just in it for the money. They may say they like helping people but they are in it for the money (How a lot of doctors in California will prescribe "medical marijuana" for "problems sleeping") They will be so tight with their money and be blind to all benefits such systems will have, and will not pay unless things work the way THEY want it to.
Don't shy away from propagating stereotypes. With years spent on a training salary, litigation, odd &long hours of work vs money the equation does not pan out. Medicine is not a way to get rich quick. What does happen is MD's finishing specialty training with large student loans which need to get paid off.
Regards, Stefan