Faith--in electronic health records

Some people riducule those of us who place our faith in God. How about those who place faith in electronic health records to solve a myriad of problems in the health "system." The faith we the people/patients, the medical community and the federal government put in electronic health records is just amazing. Here's a brief list--you can probably think of more.

• reduce costs
• track physicians' performance
• improve decisions at all levels
• connect patients with caregivers, clinical staff, care coordinators
• 24/7 access to medical help
• special clinic access
• e-mail, wireless, monitoring of patients
• home evaluations
• improved nutrition and exercise compliance
• transportation services

Noticed in an editorial in JAMA, Jan. 4, 2012--not that the author claimed to have faith, but was simply musing about all the wonderful thing EHR would bring. Any chance $27 billion in stimulus funds stimulated this faith? It looks like just another way to kill off the small medical practice by raising their costs beyond which patients can tolerate.

Having practiced medicine in both paper and electronic environments, [Jaan] Sidorov says an EHR for a group practice is, at best, a wash economically-even with federal incentives. "The cost of these systems is eye-popping, and while the price has fallen, the total bill still includes hardware, software and support. Common sense about the flow of patients and economics doesn't make me believe that doctors can recoup these costs on the back of patient billing."

And if the economics at the group practice level are murky, the prospects of lowering overall health care delivery costs is downright farfetched, Sidorov says. "On the macro-economic level, we are moving chairs around on the deck of the Titanic."

Much more here.

Jaan Siderov's blog, Disease Management Care