Thursday, January 15, 2009
A story that's not going to sell EMRs
I've been to conference sessions where the Veterans Administration was held up as a sort of gold standard for electronic medical records--they've had them longer and used them more than most docs and hospitals. Now it turns out that the VA might not be such a shining example, after all.
An investigation by Congress and the AP just revealed that software glitches in the VA's EMR have resulted in health records being associated with the wrong patient and several medication errors, including overuse of heparin. First, it's scary that this happened. Second, it's scary that the VA kept it quiet. And the third scary thing is the VA's response. A quote from a VA official (via the AP): "VA believes that veterans are active partners in their health care, and encourages patients to always follow up with their health care teams to ensure that their treatment options meet their understanding and their health care needs." So the responsibility is on the patients to make sure that the hospital's computers aren't malfunctioning? Come on.
The real question, though, is how many other EMRs have similar glitches. Obviously plenty of mistakes happen on paper, too, but can anything match the myriad ways computers can screw things up without anyone noticing?
Labels: health information technology
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
8:00 AM
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2 Comments:
I am a urologist with the VA. I find that the EMR is a marked improvement from paper charts. For example notes are readily accessed and are always readable. If one is diligent you can make sure that the patient you are seeing is matched to their clinical data and not that of some other patient on the computer. Granted I did not have to pay the cost of installing EMR but I feel that benefits far outweigh the negatives.Thank you.
Dr. Don
EMR can greatly improve quality of care by keeping patient records up-to-date and easily accessible. Clinicians can access patient records from various locations, and it is easier to update them electronically than to maintain lengthy paper trails.
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