Saturday, September 24, 2011
Kobayashi Maru
We are now in the third month of our government mandated electronic medical records system. It is amazing, not only does it require more staff, it also allows us to see half as many patients in twice as much time! On top of it all, patients complain that the computer is being takencare of instead of them. For the patients who are really lucky, it Eprescribes their prescriptions to one place so they cant shop around for a cheaper price. On a side note, we have just learned to break into the system so we can at least bypass some of the government mandated stuff to at least try to take care of some patients.
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5 comments:
Care to share which one you use? I've used Epic and NextGen. Both were terrible with the same problems you describe.
I hope it gets better for you and staff and your patients. It must be so frustrating.
I'm surprised about the staff. I thought it would decrease need for staff?
I'm guessing you have to type during patient encounter. Takes away from patient but upside then you must be done with it when visit over.
I loathe how the government is interfering with our healthcare and have great concern for quality care in the future. We have been so fortunate in this country to have the expedient and quality care.
I was just reading this disturbing article:
http://bit.ly/nsmwZB
Seriously ...I am so upset at what seems to be a takeover of our *privacy and freedoms* regarding health care.
I feel like we are all so powerless to stop this that the train has begun rolling away with our rights. I heard Cain's comment in debate recently where he discussed his being a cancer survivor and his doctor stating that because of his insurance he got the timely and necessary care. That wasn't verbatim. Anyway think we're all gonna be screwed unless someone stops it. Unbelievable how we are being FORCED into so many things by government.
We have Allscripts. We looked at both Epic and NexGen. My biggest problem with all the systems is the touting that they will improve patient care. They do not. Medical notes original purpose was to help improve patient care by helping you remember important points in you care plan and to communicate to other medical providers. Now we have five pagers of computer generated irrevelence where any important information is hidden or worse not noted. With these new systems it seems more importantly document the negatives than the positives in the exam and history. On top of it all, somebody has to sit there and go through all the junk to enter it.
These systems are not improving patient care. I would argue that they are making it worse. They are not making us more efficient as it takes more time and more people.
Throckmorton ...I know this would defeat the purpose of going electronic, but isn't there a way that if you really wanted to remember something important regarding patient care/experience that you could notate it on a hard copy of something, that you kept in s separate file. Added work - but if noteworthy, but no place for it in system. Some years back I read about a blogging doc who did that.
Good Luck with it all! :)
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