June 30th, 2011 by admin in Health Policy, Opinion
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According to Kendra Blackmon at FierceEMR.com and a new study published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the answer is maybe.
Earlier this year, NIST published a report – Human Factors Guidance to Prevent Health care Disparities with the Adoption of EHRs – which declares that “wide adoption and Meaningful Use of EHR systems” by providers and patients could impact health care disparities.
Making this happen, however, will require a different way of thinking about electronic health records (EHRs). While the report notes that EHRs primarily are used by health care workers, patients still interact with these systems both directly – such as through shared use of a display in an exam room – and indirectly. For patients to obtain the intended benefits of this technology, EHR systems should display or deliver information in a way that is suitable for their needs and preferences, the report says. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
April 10th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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President Obama’s has created an incentive program to encourage physicians to adopt functional Electronic Medical Records. The program’s $27 billion dollars (funded by President Obama’s Economic Stimulus package) will turn out to be a colossal failure and a waste of money.
Twenty seven billion dollars would provide $44,000 for 640,000 physicians. After the bureaucratic infrastructure is built the federal government will be lucky if one third of the money remains for bonuses to physicians.
Only 21,000 of 650,000 (3%) of physicians have applied to date.
Complex bureaucracies and complicated regulations never save money. These bureaucracies create bigger government, inconsistent policies, more complicated regulations and inefficiencies.
The best and cheapest way to create a universally accepted and functional EMR is for the federal government to put the software in the cloud and charge physicians by the click for the use of the Ideal Medical Record.
Upgrades in software to the Ideal Medical Record will be swift , inexpensive and instantly adopted. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
January 1st, 2011 by Linda Burke-Galloway, M.D. in Better Health Network, True Stories
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The holiday season is a time of both joy and sorrow. Tomorrow a childhood friend will be laid to rest — one of my favorite artists, Teena Marie, died unexpectedly two days ago and at least six other people have made their transitions as well. My own father died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve in 1981 leaving a great void in our family life. Why do people leave us during the holiday season? It has been said because they want to be remembered.
While I lamented about all the transitions that occurred in the past two weeks, one of my best friends announced that she had a new granddaughter that was born on Christmas Day. She stated that this was part of the “life cycle” or “circle of life.” Her comments gave me reason to pause and reflect. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*
June 8th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Opinion
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The abortion “issue” is such a hot topic that I have never written about it on this blog until today. I hope I won’t regret that decision but I felt it was appropriate to respond to this medical student’s essay – and the ~560+ comments that follow it – as a physician who has witnessed (but never performed) about 100 abortions. Let me explain.
During my Emergency Medicine training I was required to perform a certain number of intubations and abdominal ultrasound scans. My residency training program offered rotations in Ob/Gyn and at a local Planned Parenthood center. The senior residents told me that the best way to fulfill my intubation requirements was to assist with the Ob/Gyn OR procedures because the patients were young, healthy, and generally uncomplicated. At the time I was really excited by the opportunity to get the experience I needed – in as short a time as possible. I used to hang out in an Ob/Gyn operating room asking if I could assist the anesthesiologist with the intubations. Once they got to know and trust me, I could intubate about 6 patients in a day – an opportunity otherwise hard to come by as all the new anesthesiology residents were vying to practice intubation themselves.
One of the Ob/Gyns who used the OR (where I got my intubation experience) scheduled some abortions of fetuses that were at the border of viable – as old as 23 weeks. That made me quite uncomfortable, and I know that there were other staff (and several nurses) who refused to work with that physician. However, as squirmy as I felt, I thought it was important for me to see first hand what the procedure entailed… because otherwise I’d have to rely on anecdotes and second-hand opinions to draw my own conclusions. I wanted to see this for myself.
I’ll never forget the day I witnessed the first late-ish term abortion. I was preparing my intubation equipment – fidgeting with the Mac size 4 blade, making sure the light worked, when the physician brought the patient into the room on a gurney. The woman’s abdomen was very pregnant, and the Ob/Gyn was stroking her hair and whispering reassuring things to her. The anesthesiologist made small talk with the patient, explaining the nuts and bolts of the anesthesia – the oxygen mask – the propofol – the intubation. I stayed out of the patient’s line of sight and allowed the Ob/Gyn and her resident to spend some final moments with her. The scene was both tense, and yet supportive of the patient.
I initiated rapid sequence intubation with the assistance of the anesthesiologist, and then moved to get the ultrasound machine to visualize the uterus and its contents. Much to my discomfort the fetus was fairly large – and was moving around normally, even sucking its thumb at one point. I asked the Ob/Gyn resident why the fetus was being aborted since it didn’t appear to have any structural abnormalities. She responded that the mother simply didn’t want to have the baby, and had wrestled with the idea of abortion for a long time before she made her final decision.
The rest of the procedure is a bit of a blur – with details too graphic to describe here. But suffice it to say that the resident performing the dilatation and curettage had a fairly difficult time removing the fetus through the cervix, and had to resort to eliminating it in smaller parts, rather than a whole. It was very sad and it took a long time to make sure that the uterus was fully evacuated. I decided that I couldn’t watch another one of these procedures.
The rest of my female abdominal ultrasound experience was obtained at a Planned Parenthood center where very early abortions were performed. Generally, this consisted of suctioning out a tiny yolk sac (and “products of conception”) – without much of a recognizable fetus in the midst. Although these procedures were certainly emotional, they were somewhat less troubling than the later term dilatation and curettage.
What I didn’t expect, however, was that of the approximately 100 abortions I witnessed – none (to my knowledge) of the women requesting them were rape victims, nor was there a life-threatening birth defect in the fetus. Usually the reason they gave was psychological, emotional, or financial – “I just can’t afford to raise a child” or “This is not a good time for me to be pregnant” or “I don’t want this baby” or “I don’t want another baby” or “This was an accident, and I don’t want it to ruin my life.”
I did my very best to adopt an attitude much like the one that the author of the Washington Post article did – “It’s not for me to judge the validity of someone else’s reasons for wanting an abortion… They’re going to do it anyway so physicians need to make sure they’re safe… Women have the right to choose…”
But the reality was that those attitudes didn’t prepare me for the emotional turmoil inherent in the process of abortion. It’s sadder than I thought, more difficult than I thought… and the impact is farther reaching than I imagined. Studies estimate that about 1/3 of US women have an abortion at some point in their lives – that’s a heavy emotional burden that many women carry in silence.
In my opinion women should have the right to choose to have an abortion, but I’d hope that they also consider their right to choose to give their baby up for adoption as well. Some believe that an abortion is “easier” than giving up a baby for adoption – but I’m not so sure that’s the case from an emotional perspective. As far as rape victims or women who are carrying a moribund fetus – the decision to abort may well be emotionally less damaging. But for the majority of women who have abortions for less clear reasons (reasons like the ones I witnessed), I’d really encourage them to consider adoption as an option. Obviously, these decisions are intensely personal and have to be made on a case-by-case basis – and women should be supported either way.
As scientific and rational as I wanted to be about the procedure, I am still troubled by what I experienced as a witness to various abortions. Though I might have “entered the abortion conversation” as the third-year medical student did – after witnessing quite a few, I have a deeper appreciation for the emotional complexity of abortion, and a desire to help women avoid them if at all possible. I wonder if the author of the Washington Post article will change her perspective after she’s witnessed a few of the procedures?
June 2nd, 2009 by Geeta Nayyar, M.D. in Expert Interviews, Medblogger Shout Outs
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I attended the 29th annual Management of Change (MOC) Conference with Dr. Val. The conference is sponsored by the American Council for Technology and the Industry Advisory Council. MOC brings together government and industry leaders to share knowledge, collaborate, and develop actionable technology management strategies. As a physician, attending this conference for the first time, I assumed a great deal of the conference topics would be over my head and in very “techie” terms. My hope was to get a glimpse of some of the technology solutions the government was considering as they relate to health care IT.
Vivek Kundra, first Chief Information Officer of the United States, addressed the audience early in the day in language that even a doc could understand. He spoke about the need to simplify government, and connect people to solutions, instead of “endless bureaucracies.” The same of course goes for medicine. How great would it be to connect our patients to systems that actually had interoperable medical data?
I was able to catch up with Mr. Kundra after his talk for a few minutes and ask him how technological simplification would apply to physicians such as myself, operating in a haphazard infrastructure with varying PAC systems, EMR’s and paper charts. He said the key would not only be investing in technology, but investing in training healthcare personnel to master new technologies. He acknowledged that different generations of physicians would embrace technology differently, but ultimately, if a physician says he “can do a better job on paper” then we have a problem.
I was very impressed by Mr. Kundra’s answer namely because it was so insightful for a man who’s expertise lies primarily in the technology field. He does not come from a healthcare background, and yet had hit the nail on the head. There has been so much talk about HIT being the “key” to cost savings and the next “breakthrough” in medicine. With very little discussion on how physicians feel about it. For some docs – particularly those that come from an older generation – the thought is quite terrifying. They are happy with their paper charts and manual dictations. Health technology is almost viewed as an impediment to those set in their ways, and accustomed to a system that has worked for them and their patients for years. This upheaval will not come without it’s challenges even after we find the best technologies for the tasks at hand. It will be imperative for government leaders to understand that the mission of HIT implementation may be just as difficult as finding the technology solutions they are currently seeking.
As Mr. Kundra and his team embark on this huge task, it will be important for physicians and health care personnel to engage with the government and serve as a guide for what docs need from technology, and what will and will not work for our patients. I hope next year’s conference is attended by more physicians such as myself and Dr. Val.
