Although technology in medicine by no means equates to salvation, medical informatics can certainly make the transfer and sharing of patient information much easier in a complicated system. You would think that busy physicians would welcome medical information systems that would facilitate the transfer and hand off of patient histories, diagnostic tests and treatments between both providers and health care systems. Not true.
I still get many referrals from community physicians and local hospitals with indecipherable chicken scratch for progress notes. I still must request faxes with labs and diagnostic test results. Perhaps one day medical information systems will allow the secure electronic transfer of patient records between health care systems and providers. Based on recent publications, this will likely not occur soon.
Dr. Mike Edmond’s collaborative medical blog hyperlinks to an article by Megan Mcardle titled “Paging the Luddite”. Among other things, the article highlights how physicians have been slow to adopt medical informatics, partly because of cost and partly because of fear of oversight and loss of autonomy.
The WSJ recently reported the results of a CDC survey on the use of electronic medical records. The results are somewhat disappointing as only half of physicians reported using an electronic medical record, at least in some fashion.
We still have a long way to go.
My message to the other half: you are holding us back.
