Twenty years after President Bush laid out his vision for electronic health records, the U.S. has spent $100 billion for systems that keep doctors and nurses glued to their screens
My primary care doctor resigned in Jan 2025 because it was too depressing being on screens all the time…
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Electronic health records when used appropriately are miles better than paper. More than half the article talks about the benefits before noting the two problems that paper does not solve. Which is crossing records from one system to another and the bloat that has been added as different specialties need to input different things. There will always be room for improvement but saying EHRs are a problem fully neglects that they are still a massive improvement.
theneverfox@pawb.social 2 days ago
Yeah, but like… Are they really? No two systems communicate, every hospital configures even the same systems to be essentially incompatible, and the system is built as if it’s all seamless
It’s so bad. Paper records in a secure central database would be an improvement - 20 years of this and bending over harder for insurance companies is the only change
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
They’re a lot better in terms of tracking. No white out, backdating, loss in natural disaster. Better privacy as who looks is logged and requires note of reason for a non-provider to look. Tracking helps bill you yes but it can also help fight if records don’t match.
Even if records can’t be directly imported across systems it can be sent a lot faster and easier which is important to efficient, effective care. If you stay within a given hospital/provider system integration works pretty dang well.
Paper records are worse in many ways getting rid of them was a big push of the ACA for a reason. Obama admin did choose implementation before integration at the time but that is a reform to what exists you don’t have to reinvent the wheel so to speak.
The insurance dildo is a mostly separate issue from ehr.