Here’s a quick look at some interesting tweets out their in the healthcare IT and EHR Twitterverse.
Believed benefits to large scale #emr epic install at cambridge university hospital was Pt safety #EHILive
— Nick van Terheyden (@drnic1) November 5, 2014
I’ve heard this argument from Epic before. There’s certainly an argument to make for improved patient safety on one system. However, that’s likely because our current systems aren’t interoperable. If they were interoperable, then having one massive system wouldn’t be better for patient safety. Considering, the EHR world is going to be a heterogeneous EHR environment, we need to make it so multiple systems isn’t a patient safety issue.
"Doctors need help in taking care of their pts, but instead they have a tool designed for insurance auditors." http://t.co/oW2Ir4heb6 #EMR
— Mary L. Brandt MD (@drmlb) November 2, 2014
Ouch! I’ve described them as big billing engines, but I think a tool designed for insurance auditors might be more descriptive. Lately there has been a new layer added. EHR is now a tool for meaningful use auditors as well.
RIP CCHIT: http://t.co/NL7XRdYqRu via @ehrandhit Good news – more focus needed on better value added programs to help real workflow.
— Darice Grzybowski (@dariceg1) October 31, 2014
CCHIT being gone won’t likely have much impact on healthcare and EHR. They were basically gone for a number of years already. Although, I think their departure is a good thing for healthcare IT and EHR. I’d just still love to see EHR certification disappear as well. EHR certification is not meaningful.
In regards to interoperability, I had a personal experience recently that reminded me of how important this is – and how hard it seems to be to come by. I had a ’emergency’ that took me to my doctor’s office, who sent me to the nearby ER, which referred me for further treatment in a department at another hospital in the same hospital system as the ER is in. The ER had no info from the doctor’s office. The ER was able to find earlier records on me from a like incident, which was helpful – now that they had an EHR connected to the one from the rest of the hospital. The 2nd hospital had no info at all from the first, including lab results – except that which I brought with me on paper.
It could be worse – my situation was rather simple, but IMHO it’s pathetic! Oh, I forgot to mention that the doctor’s office is closely ‘connected’ to the hospital that the ER is in. Essentially, all 3 are part of the same system, and at best they still rely on paper, phone calls and faxes to communicate with each other – if indeed they do communicate. This system is spending vast sums of money on ERH but with very slow progress.
Ron