EHR Backlash

See the following -

Dr. Don Berwick: Medical Error Is The Third Leading Cause Of Death In The US

Tori Bedford | WGBH News | May 5, 2016

The two most common causes of death in the United States are medical: heart disease and cancer, respectively. According to a new study, the third cause could also be medical—in a terrifying way. According to research published in the British Medical Journal, medical errors in hospitals and other medical facilities could be the third leading cause of death in the U.S., claiming 250,000 lives every year. One of the study’s authors wrote, “it boils down to people dying from the care that they receive, rather than the disease for which they are seeking care”...

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EHR Replacement: Addressing Data Ownership And Migration

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | April 4, 2014

In many cases, an EHR replacement ends up being even more complicated than an initial implementation.  Clinicians now have a laundry list of complaints about the first system and may be vocal in demanding specific changes that a new EHR must include.

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EHR Systems & Cost Transparency in the Healthcare Industry

Cost transparency is obviously a big issue in the healthcare industry. Whether it’s the amazing variation in costs hospitals charge patients for similar medical procedures, or the costs associated with acquiring and implementing an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system for a hospital - Why are all these costs often carefully hidden?  Is there something special about the healthcare industry that says – "Let's not talk about how much things really cost." Apparently, many industry leaders must feel that hospitals boards and patients have no need to know this information. Read More »

EHRs Not Meeting The Challenges Of Primary Care According To New Study

Press Release | Regenstrief Institute | June 15, 2021

"The human mind can do many things well. Digesting vast amounts of patient information while multitasking in time-constrained situations exposes a limitation. EHR technology should be able to complement or enhance physicians' abilities in these scenarios," said Regenstrief Institute Research Scientist April Savoy, PhD, who led the new study. "But current EHRs are overloading primary care physicians with information in disparate files and folders rather than presenting comprehensive, actionable data in a context that gives meaning.

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Electronic Health Records Increase Doctors’ Bureaucratic Burden

Press Release | Physicians for a National Health Program | October 23, 2014

The average U.S. doctor spends 16.6 percent of his or her working hours on non-patient-related paperwork, time that might otherwise be spent caring for patients. And the more time doctors spend on such bureaucratic tasks, the unhappier they are about having chosen medicine as a career.

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Electronic Health Records: a “Quadruple Win,” a “Quadruple Failure,” or Simply Time for a Reboot?

Michael Hochman | Journal of General Internal Medicine | February 5, 2018

Just a decade ago, when paper charts were commonplace in the USA, it seemed that electronic health records (EHRs) were destined to transform the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery, as well as the care experience for patients and clinicians...The reality over the ensuring years has, to put it mildly, not met expectations. According to a 2014 analysis led by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information,2 over 80% of US doctors now use EHRs. Yet, many of the predictions about the benefits of EHRs have yet to materialize to the extent predicted. ..Noteworthy concerns include egregious medical errors resulting from design glitches3, charting templates filled extensively with meaningless boilerplate, the common practice of pasting old notes4 that makes it difficult to know which documentation is “real,” “alert fatigue”5 due to excessive EHR warnings, and even reduced communication among clinical team members.6

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Electronic Records System Failure at Hospitals Prompts Nurses’ Concerns for Patient Safety

Press Release | National Nurses United | March 2, 2015

Registered nurses at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, Ca have asked the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to investigate the failure of an electronic health records system at their hospital last weekend which they say led to the closure of the hospital emergency room and multiple other problems that put patients at risk. In a message to the Los Angeles DPH office, Antelope Valley RN Maria Altamirano, on behalf of other RNs who are members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United warned that on February 27 “our entire electronic and data system failed.”

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Epic EHR Implementation Causes Financial Issues at MASS Hospital

Sara Heath | EHR Intelligence | March 31, 2016

A Massachusetts hospital will be laying off 95 employees as a result of financial losses following an Epic Systems EHR implementation. According to Jessica Bartlett of Boston Business Journal, Southcoast Hospital will be cutting one percent of its workforce across all three of its locations in Fall River, Wareham, and New Bedford, Massachusetts...

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Epic EHR Implementation Cited in Denver Health CEO’s Departure

Kyle Murphy, Ph.D. | EHR Intelligence | April 1, 2016

Is the forthcoming retirement of Denver Health CEO a sign of bad things to come for the health system which is set for an Epic EHR go-live in a week's time? Two reports lean well toward the affirmative. On Wednesday, the hospital's CEO Arthur Gonzalez announced his decision to step down from office on June 30...

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Epic Retains Lobbyist to Improve Image on Capitol Hill

Darius Tahir | Modern Healthcare | September 10, 2014

Electronic health-record giant Epic Systems Corp. has hired a lobbying firm for the first time to counter a perception on Capitol Hill that its EHR systems aren't interoperable with other vendors' technology. The Verona, Wis.-based company retained lobbyists Card & Associates in August, according to the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act database. Epic says in the registration that it's making the move to “educate members of Congress on the interoperability of Epic's healthcare information technology.”

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For Hospitals on the Edge, Health IT is the Tipping Point

Without question, massive health IT expense and the predominant proprietary IT model are threats to a hospital or health system’s financial viability, to its solvency. We’re seeing some examples even now. Michigan’s Henry Ford Health System recently reported a 15 percent decrease in net income as a result of uncompensated care and $36 million spent on a proprietary EHR system. According to health system CEO Nancy Schlichting, “We knew that 2012 and 2013 would not be easy years for the system because of the Epic costs.” Read More »

Guess What: Docs Don't Like EHRs

It's kind of "dog-bites-man" type news, but there is even more evidence that physicians not only don't think EHRs are helping them but actually see them as contributing to burnout. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that use of EHRs (or computerized physician order entries -- CPOEs) was associated with lower satisfaction with time spent on clerical tasks, with nearly half of physicians saying the amount of time spent on clerical tasks was unreasonable.  No wonder the AMA CEO recently complained that physicians were turning into the "most expensive data entry force on the face of the planet."

Halamka on Why he Disagrees with the "Snake Oil" Analogy

Earlier this week, the American Medical Association CEO called digital healthcare products modern-day "snake oil." As a provider and a technologist, I think we need a deeper dive to understand the issues, avoiding the kind of hyperbole that’s so common in politics today. Paul B. Batalden, MD, Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), once said “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets”. Let’s take a brief look at the history of national healthcare IT efforts from 2004-2016 to understand how we’ve achieved exactly the results we designed.

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Hazards Tied to Medical Records Rush

Christopher Rowland | Boston Globe | July 20, 2014

Subsidies given for computerizing, but no reporting required when errors cause harm

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Healthcare Has Cost Problems, but IT and EHRs Do Not Have to be One of Them

I’m proud to lead a group of intelligent and energetic technology professionals committed to developing a robust healthcare IT system that is (1) easy for clinicians to use, (2) improves patient health and (3) doesn’t bankrupt hospital budgets. We think any sustainable system must have those three key requirements. And how is healthcare doing thus far? The EHRs available today are developing rapidly. Vendors are making frequent and impactful improvements to improve system usability. Clinicians are getting better at maximizing the contribution healthcare IT makes to patient health and safety. It’s not hard to see how healthcare IT can meet the first two requirements and broadly contribute to improved healthcare.

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