“Paper medical records cause harm: They are easily lost and damaged, they disappear during emergencies, and they are often incomplete. With incorrect or missing information, doctors end up duplicating tests, making uninformed decisions and delaying care. Patients deserve better. But are electronic charts really any better?
My first encounter with electronic medical records came when I was a resident just out of medical school. Our emergency room switched over from paper. I found paper charts quick and easy to use, and hoped the electronic system would work the same way, but be more reliable. But the new charts made care more complicated. Each patient note involved a maze of checkboxes, diagnosis codes, and irrelevant questions. While my paper notes spelled out whether a patient concerned me medically, the electronic notes garbled the message and hid important information in unexpected places.”
Articles
Alexander Friedman, The Wall Street Journal, 12 February 2010
