President elect Obama wants to computerize all the nation's health care records in 5 years. I'm not going to go into how much this will cost or whether or not it is feasible, but I will put my support behind it. I work in a hospital and clinic that are both almost entirely paperless. We still have some paper floating around for things such as MRI because the MRI is owned by two hospitals and the radiology group and not all are on the same EMR (electronic medical record).
I love electronic medical records. The transition from paper records to computer records is going to be very difficult for many physicians, but for those of us who are now being trained, computers are second nature. The errors that are avoided by not having physicians write their notes or orders are just the beginning. In addition you also have the accessibility to patients records whenever you need them. When I'm on call I can review labs, read consultant notes, and put in orders all from the comfort of my own home at 2 AM. When a patient of one of my collegues calls with a request for a prescription that was written but never called into the pharmacy I can quickly bring up the chart and read the note from the visit earlier in the day.
IHC in Utah has one of the best EMRs I have seen. In addition to being a very competent program it is also used by all the IHC facilities in Utah and thus it is possible for a physician in Southern Utah to see the results of a test done at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake minutes after the test is reported. Physicians can share common drug formularies across the state to increase the speed of the paperwork required by the healthcare industry.
My hospital went paperless less than one year ago and it has not been easy. Many of the older docs complain (loudly and rather unprofessionally) every day about the system, but I love it. I enjoy being able to read what my consultants have to say rather than spending my time translating the chicken scratch of the cardiologist.
When I was in medical school I was very worried about the regulations that were coming down the line to prohibit cursive writing in prescriptions and to eventually requiring all prescriptions to be printed or phoned. Since graduating from medical school I have not written one prescription by hand and in that time I have only received one call from a pharmacy requesting clarification on an order.
I think Obama has a good idea here and we would be smart to get behind it.
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Amen! The first time I was fully introduced to EMRs was in North Carolina, and I was so impressed. I used a network of doctors there, and no matter who I went to, where, for what, all they had to do was open my file and they could see all my meds, history, everything. Same for my kids. I loved it. And I love it about IHC. That's one thing Obama wants done that I'm thrilled about. Hopefully it can be made affordable, somehow.
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