This article per Reuter's reveals something that I am not surprised about. Physicians especially in their privat offices are not using computers to document patient records, write prescriptions or to track patients' routine preventative care. Working at a facility where in the Emergency Department we do use all computerized systems I would find this hard to live without. I can sit at my workstation, see every patient in the department, view their chief complaint and triage note(when completed), view their prior visit history , including all the old history and physicals, lab results, etc. I can order all my tests and view new and old plain xrays, CT Scan and ultrasounds. I can also access the internet to see this sight and my toolbox, as well as view email, and anything else the hospital doesn't filter out. Granted this near utopia I work in is paid for by the hospital.
But what is the solo practitioner or small group internist to do financially to pay for these things when their is really little monetary incentive. Sure you could argue that with a prescrition writer, less mistakes will be made, and that better office charting could protect you in a lawsuit. But the internists, family practice and pediatricians still have pretty reasonable malpractice rates so this doesn't help much. Finally, there is the “it is good for my patients'”argument. Again, when the upfront cost come right from your take home salary this too is hard to swallow.
Unfortunately, this lack of technology is prevalent across all fields in medicine. Those of you in the technology field would think that the paramedics who come to your house could easily download all the information about your care in the field to the hospital when you arrive. Nope, doesn't happen. You would think that most information from the hospital could easily be sent right to your doctors office anutomatically. Nope, doesn't happen. If you order a medication in the hospital, and it is the wrong dose or frequency, someone will notice, not always.
So to all of you techies out there, we need open architecture systems that are easily adapted and customized to our needs and can quickly speak to one another through a common language (XML?), and finally this needs to be affordable to the masses (think Microsoft Office for every aspect of healthcare). We as the customers are tired of technology that is rammed down our throats , forcing us to change our processes to work around it!
healthcare technology open source architecture