Oh! Just the idiocy of it all!
That’s a quote from an email I got from an older doctor in response to a discussion about EHR software and in particular programs like meaningful use and now MACRA. This is a doctor who I’ve exchanged many emails with over multiple years. Needless to say, he’s not happy with what’s happening with EHR software and sees it as an awful thing for medicine. I think this is the view of most older doctors.
While most older doctors feel this way, I wonder if the next generations of doctors will feel the same. I’ll never forget my med school friend who said he hated rounding at a doctor’s office that didn’t have an EHR because he types faster than he writes. Or the middle-aged doctor that’s been a friend of my family since I was a kid that’s been on EHR so long that he once told me “I’ve never really known anything but an EHR, so I can’t imagine practicing medicine without it.”
I understand the doctors who complain about EHRs and more importantly complain about the regulations which are reflected in the features EHR software companies push out. EHR was a massive change for many of them and that can be brutal. Plus, there are plenty of issues with many EHR software and EHR implementations out there. Some that can be resolved and some that can’t. Not to mention that many regulation requirements aren’t clinically useful. We should be glad doctors are upset over this.
However, will the next generation of doctors care?
Besides the fact that new doctors are digital natives who grew up with technology, there’s also the fact that new doctors won’t know what life in a medical office was like before EHR. EHR documentation will just be part of the status quo for them and when you don’t know about the alternative, then you don’t hate it as much. It’s just a required part of the profession and it’s always been that way.
The reality for most new doctors is that there are so many things that are screwed up with our healthcare system, that the EHR is just one more to add to the pile of things that don’t make much sense. They’ll just consider it a feature of the profession and likely not complain much.
The one thing that could change all of this is for a new EHR or related solution to come out and blow all the current EHR vendors off the map. It would have to be something so dramatically better for organizations that healthcare organizations can’t resist it. Think of the way the iPhone made us rethink cell phones. It needs to be a solution which is that much better. Does such a solution exist? Can such a solution be built? Or do the current healthcare regulations prevent such a solution? Will it take changes in regulation and reimbursement to enable a new EHR that doctors love and not a change by an EHR software vendor?
Mr Lynn:
Re: comments in the blog post above : “He’s not happy with what’s happening with EHR software and sees it as an awful thing for medicine. I think this is the view of most older doctors.While most older doctors feel this way…..”
Your repetitive inclusion of this ‘older doctor hates EMR/IT/’change in general’ stereotype is specious, disingenuous as well as significantly inaccurate and tiresome. When citing remarks or views expressed by a physician, your commentary seems to convey elements of ‘willful misinterpretation, misunderstanding[yours] & distortional tinges’ .
This is particularly evident in your opinions of ‘most older doctors’. However in reality these physicians are the ‘seasoned’, well experienced, very highly skilled clinicians who are most keenly aware of the various ‘dysfunctional’ [even detrimental] aspects of current EMRs when providing optimal medical care to patients. Your paradigm perhaps needs some reconsideration ?
Yes, my response is blunt,sharp and distinctly critical in its wording and necessary for raising some specific points . Will be glad to have a dialogue by phone if you have interest in a fuller explanation/clarification of my reply to your blog post.
contact via Txt 919-810-6370
[analogy for your consideration : Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, Jan 2009.]