Medical errors may be reduced by redundancy?
One of the great advantages of electronic medical records (EMRs) is that they can reduce unnecessary repeat testing. Without an EMR that is accessible to all physicians taking care of a single patient, there’s no way for them to know what the other one is prescribing. Expensive tests like MRIs are often ordered by two different physicians (a neurosurgeon and a rehabilitation medicine specialist for example) because one didn’t know that the other had already ordered it. Alternatively, they may be affiliated with institutions that don’t share data, so previous MRI images are not available for viewing by the new specialist – so she just orders another one.
However, an interesting question is raised by Dr. Perloe’s post to my last blog entry: what if all specialists taking care of a patient had access to one medical record – and there was a lab error? They would all rely on the same erroneous record, and this could spark a whole host of inappropriate tests and procedures. Even second opinions (based on one single record) would be less helpful – because they would be misled by false results.
So, the irony is that the redundancy in our system has its benefits. We should be mindful of the checks and balances that we are unwittingly removing with EMRs. Occasional lab errors will always be with us – let’s make sure we catch them early, and not commit them to a permanent record relied upon by all.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
Val,
When i moved to Northern VA to work for Revolution, one of my criteria for finding a physician as that they use an EMR for the reasons you stated.
C