Don’t assume electronic records equate to patient safety

White Coat Notes: “Dr. Pamela Hartzband and Dr. Jerome Groopman of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, writing in [the] New England Journal of Medicine, warn that computers make it too easy for doctors to lose focus on the patients before them. Residents and doctors can cut and paste one another’s notes into the record, sacrificing the benefit of fresh eyes looking at a patient and distilling what is most relevant. Lab test results can flood the record with no selectivity on what matters for the current problem.”