Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Health care is about relationships. Health IT fails to understand that.

Suneel Dhand, MD
Tech
January 28, 2016
Share
Tweet
Share

The promise that information technology holds for health care is, quite literally, amazing. So far, it has enabled us to get rid of paper charts (not to mention the age-old problem of illegible doctors’ handwriting), negated the need to trawl through mountains of files to find old clinical data, and introduced much-needed safety improvements such as medication alerts.

But anyone practicing at the frontlines of medicine over the last few years will also be very familiar with the negatives: reduced face time with patients, lost productivity, and daily clinician frustrations with the IT solutions that have been put before us.

As someone who has personally witnessed the information technology roll-out in several different hospitals up and down the east coast, I’ve also keenly been observing the relationship between the world of health care IT and clinical medicine.

A recent online article about the problems with information technology, citing legitimate concerns from a clinical standpoint, attracted a comment from an IT professional that particularly caught my attention. The comment stated that he had worked in hospitals during the roll-out process, and couldn’t understand why physicians were not embracing IT. He then went on to lament how physicians shouldn’t “resist change” and must learn to work accordingly.

This comment alone summed up the gulf that exists between the two worlds — one that at times seems almost unbridgeable.

The most palpable problem from the clinical world is that whether we are talking about IT programmers, designers, entrepreneurs or simply administrators, these professionals consistently fail to recognize that the work of a physician is primarily one that involves people and relationships. To many of them, the more time a physician spends at a computer terminal and the more IT tasks that can be given to them, the better. After all, in their world, it’s all about computers and technology right?

So here’s three things for all IT folk to remember, whatever their pay grade:

1. Most physicians, unlike many other professions, went into medicine to deal with human beings. Information technology, while very much the future, should be a minimal part of what a physician does on a daily basis (at least as minimal as possible when it involves desk work).

2. Health care is an intensely personal and human arena. It is about relationships and very raw emotions of illness and sickness.  Remember that. What you do is a vital adjunct, but is far (and not even close) to being everything that health care is about. “Data collection,” “cloud solutions,” and “mobile apps” are not at the core of good clinical medicine.

3. The majority of patients right now, and for the foreseeable future, are elderly and, in reality, don’t care too much about computers and technology at the frontlines of health care. They want good thorough bedside medicine, a compassionate and caring ear, and to get better as soon as possible

Our two worlds need to exist together. Most physicians know that technology represents the future and want to help make IT better. Perhaps consider shadowing a physician to better understand what frontline medicine is really all about? Because tomorrow it could be your mum, dad or other loved one that requires a good and competent doctor.

The IT solutions of the future need to be super-efficient, seamless and mobile. They need to be “seen and not heard” and ultimately, help take doctors and nurses back to where they belong: with their patients. Only when the world of technology reconciles itself to the world of clinical medicine, can we truly fulfill the immense promise of health care IT.

Suneel Dhand is an internal medicine physician and author of three books, includingThomas Jefferson: Lessons from a Secret Buddha. He is the founder and director, HealthITImprove, and blogs at his self-titled site, Suneel Dhand.

ADVERTISEMENT

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

The straight face test of our health care system

January 27, 2016 Kevin 7
…
Next

Doctors and patients: An inability to talk to one another as people

January 28, 2016 Kevin 6
…

Tagged as: Health IT

Post navigation

< Previous Post
The straight face test of our health care system
Next Post >
Doctors and patients: An inability to talk to one another as people

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Suneel Dhand, MD

  • The dream patient that makes a doctor very happy

    Suneel Dhand, MD
  • When the family wants to speak to the doctor

    Suneel Dhand, MD
  • 3 reasons why patients are unhappy

    Suneel Dhand, MD

Related Posts

  • How social media can help or hurt your health care career

    Health eCareers
  • Turn physicians into powerful health care influencers

    Kevin Pho, MD
  • Why health care fails to deliver better value in patient care

    Kristan Langdon, DNP and Timothy Lee, MPH
  • A framework to understand universal health care

    Kevin Tolliver, MD, MBA
  • America leads the world in high tech care and health care costs

    Mark Kelley, MD
  • Why health care replaced physician care

    Michael Weiss, MD

More in Tech

  • How I stopped typing notes and started seeing my patients again

    William S. Micka, MD
  • How AI is reshaping preventive medicine

    Jalene Jacob, MD, MBA
  • Why clinicians must lead health care tech innovation

    Kimberly Smith, RN
  • Why medical notes have become billing scripts instead of patient stories

    Sriman Swarup, MD, MBA
  • a desk with keyboard and ipad with the kevinmd logo

    AI in health care is moving too fast for the human heart

    Tiffiny Black, DM, MPA, MBA
  • Why AI in health care needs the same scrutiny as chemotherapy

    Rafael Rolon Rivera, MD
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The human case for preserving the nipple after mastectomy

      Thomas Amburn, MD | Conditions
    • Nuclear verdicts and rising costs: How inflation is reshaping medical malpractice claims

      Robert E. White, Jr. & The Doctors Company | Policy
    • How new loan caps could destroy diversity in medical education

      Caleb Andrus-Gazyeva | Policy
    • IMGs are the future of U.S. primary care

      Adam Brandon Bondoc, MD | Physician
    • Why doctors struggle with family caregiving and how to find grace [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Locum tenens: Reclaiming purpose, autonomy, and financial freedom in medicine

      Trevor Cabrera, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • Health equity in Inland Southern California requires urgent action

      Vishruth Nagam | Policy
    • How restrictive opioid policies worsen the crisis

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • Why primary care needs better dermatology training

      Alex Siauw | Conditions
    • Why pain doctors face unfair scrutiny and harsh penalties in California

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • How a doctor defied a hurricane to save a life

      Dharam Persaud-Sharma, MD, PhD | Physician
    • What street medicine taught me about healing

      Alina Kang | Education
  • Recent Posts

    • How trust and communication power successful dyad leadership in health care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Why Hollywood’s allergy jokes are dangerous

      Lianne Mandelbaum, PT | Conditions
    • How I learned to love my unique name as a doctor

      Zoran Naumovski, MD | Physician
    • My first week on night float as a medical student

      Amish Jain | Education
    • What Beauty and the Beast taught me about risk

      Jayson Greenberg, MD | Physician
    • Creating safe, authentic group experiences

      Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH | Physician

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 11 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The human case for preserving the nipple after mastectomy

      Thomas Amburn, MD | Conditions
    • Nuclear verdicts and rising costs: How inflation is reshaping medical malpractice claims

      Robert E. White, Jr. & The Doctors Company | Policy
    • How new loan caps could destroy diversity in medical education

      Caleb Andrus-Gazyeva | Policy
    • IMGs are the future of U.S. primary care

      Adam Brandon Bondoc, MD | Physician
    • Why doctors struggle with family caregiving and how to find grace [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Locum tenens: Reclaiming purpose, autonomy, and financial freedom in medicine

      Trevor Cabrera, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • Health equity in Inland Southern California requires urgent action

      Vishruth Nagam | Policy
    • How restrictive opioid policies worsen the crisis

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • Why primary care needs better dermatology training

      Alex Siauw | Conditions
    • Why pain doctors face unfair scrutiny and harsh penalties in California

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • How a doctor defied a hurricane to save a life

      Dharam Persaud-Sharma, MD, PhD | Physician
    • What street medicine taught me about healing

      Alina Kang | Education
  • Recent Posts

    • How trust and communication power successful dyad leadership in health care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Why Hollywood’s allergy jokes are dangerous

      Lianne Mandelbaum, PT | Conditions
    • How I learned to love my unique name as a doctor

      Zoran Naumovski, MD | Physician
    • My first week on night float as a medical student

      Amish Jain | Education
    • What Beauty and the Beast taught me about risk

      Jayson Greenberg, MD | Physician
    • Creating safe, authentic group experiences

      Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH | Physician

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Health care is about relationships. Health IT fails to understand that.
11 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...