(Quartz) Together with the compressed time of office visits, EMRs conspire to turn medical practice into a regimented, one-size-fits-all endeavor, just when science and technology are giving us more ability than ever to treat our patients as the individuals they are. EMRs aren’t working on the whole. They’re time consuming, prioritize billing codes over patient care, and too often force physicians to focus on digital recordkeeping rather than the patient in front of them. EMRs could, for example, incorporate basic diagnostic support functions that simplify physicians’ jobs, enabling them to focus more acutely on treating the whole patient. Today’s search engines are better at helping doctors diagnose disease than our EMRs. I thought this was well stated but didn’t identify reengineering the processes (automated and manual) as the culprit. EMR’s are a tool and the user has to both adapt it and adapt to it. Consider why there are so many hammers, the framing hammer doesn’t work well for finish work.
