I just came across the best reason for doctors to embrace electronic medical records.
Farzad Mostashari, M.D., reminded members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) that a paper file is worthless. "You can't use it for anything. You can't move it, you can't learn from it." The data lover reportedly said that paper is great if you’re Harry Potter.
Vendors like standardization, he told CHIME. Patients do, too. Whenever my family needs medical care, we ask for the records. My sons' pediatricians use Webview, a program that healthcare providers and patients can access from any computer. It's terrific. We may forget the dosage of ibuprofen that the doctor recommended, but we can easily access it, even if we're traveling.
Recently, we met a seasoned doctor who said that as of February, he will have to reduce the number of patients he'll be seeing. Why? Because the hospital he's affiliated with is going to be using EPIC. It's going to be a long learning curve because he is not computer-literate, he admitted, but in the long run it will be worth it.
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