EHRs Can't Do Everything

Some say expectations for EHRs are just too high

Like many other industries, healthcare is becoming more consumer-focused. As Eric Wicklund and Mike Miliard have recently documented for Healthcare IT News, patients and doctors alike have spoken out against EHR solutions for interfering with rather than facilitating doctor-patient interactions. While thorough data collection and analysis, where EHRs offer great value, feeds research at the population level, it seems that the apparent failure of current EHRs to accommodate patients as unique cases has sparked this shift in attitude in the health IT industry.

The issue may not be so much the failure of EHRs, as their falling short of unduly high expectations -- expectations not only from the people who use them, but also the vendors themselves.

“I think it’s a myth that EHR vendors are going to be able to provide everything.  Every other industry has proven this wrong, says Joanne Rohde, CEO of Axial Exchange, in an interview with Healthcare IT News.