I think it’s fair to say that digital health is warming up. And not just in one area. The sheer number and variety of trends are almost as impressive as the heat trajectory itself. The scientist in me can’t help but make the connection to water molecules in a glass — there may be many of them, but not all have enough kinetic energy to ascend beyond their liquid state. …
Digital health in 2015: What’s hot and what’s not?
If you delve into the personal stories of health IT innovators, most journeys rest on their personal interaction with the health care system on behalf of themselves, a parent, a child, or perhaps a sibling. Just a few weeks ago, I had a small interaction with the health care system that confirmed many of the impressions I have developed of providers’ strengths and weaknesses.
There’s no way to start except with …
How health IT fails transgender patients
2014 was the most exciting year in digital health since 2000, when the human genome was cloned. In February 2001, The Human Genome Project and Craig Venter’s Celera Genomics published the hallmark event. What followed was over a decade of glimmers of the potential for personalized medicine and new insights into disease, but also realistic mitigations in expectations, as is wont to happen in health care.
There is every indication that …
Why 2014 was a groundbreaking year in digital health
While the electronic medical record (EMR) has advantages, it also has introduced liability risks. EMRs can lead to lawsuits or result in a weak defense by casting the physician in an unfavorable light.
For example, examine these exchanges in a recent malpractice trial:
EMRs can hurt physicians during lawsuits. Here’s how.
It is a heart pounding, head spinning, edge of your seat page-turner; the sort of rare saga that takes your breath away as it changes you, forever. It hints at a radically different future, a completely new world a few years away, which will disrupt the lives of every man, woman, and child. Available now, from the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), Office of the Secretary, United States …
Health IT will radically transform medicine. Is it for the better?
Doctors and hospitals often exist in a universe parallel to the consumers, patients, and caregivers they serve, a prominent chief medical information officer told me last week. In one world, clinicians and health care providers continue to implement the electronic health records systems they’ve adopted over the past several years, respond to financial incentives for meaningful use, and re-engineer workflows to manage the business of health care under constrained reimbursement.
In …
A lot has been written about how awful electronic health record (EHR) systems are. They are overwrought, overengineered, dreadfully dull baroque systems with awkward user interfaces that look like they were designed in the early 1990s. They make it too easy to cut and paste data to meet billing level requirements, documenting patient care that never happened and creating multipage mega-notes, full of words signifying exactly nothing.
They have multitudes of …
EHRs: It’s time to start from scratch
I once wrote about the communication difficulties caused by electronic medical records systems. The response on Twitter ranged from sentiments including everything from “right on, sister” to “greedy doctors are only complaining about EMRs because of their price tag.” The disconnect between policy wonk’s (and EMR vendor’s) belief in the transformative power of EMRs and exasperated clinician users of these products is jaw-dropping. Physicians are often labeled as obstinate dinosaurs, blocking progress, while policy wonks …
What happens to medical notes today’s EMRs
My lifetime has spanned many of the important developments in the Age of Computers. Back in 1969 when I entered college, I was a frequent visitor to the Kiewit Computing Center, the lair of a GE-635 computer that filled several rooms. Students had access to the computer via noisy teletypes and a multiuser operating system known as Dartmouth Time Sharing. We wrote simple programs in BASIC, a language created by two of …
Competition helped innovate computers: Can it do the same for health care?
It took me until 2010 to buy an iPhone and in just a few years, I’ve become so dependent on it, without fail, I will always make a U-turn to make sure it’s with me — my smartphone is essentially a new limb for me.
I know I’m not alone.
Most did not predict the rocket speed adoption and transformative power of modern smartphones when the iPhone launched in 2007. But, in …
What could a digital future look like in health care?
A common complaint regarding the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) is that physicians spend the majority of their time with a patient “tinkering” on a computer rather than interacting with the patient.
Use of EMRs is now mandatory in the U.S., creating many advantages: Patient information can be more easily shared in a secure environment, there are no lost files or …
Medical scribes are a solution to click overload
My dad was a wonderful guy who could fill the room with his personality. He grew up during the Great Depression and was a World War II veteran. I was thinking of him recently while considering how much health care delivery has changed in the last 100 years.
When asked about his health, my dad would always say, “I feel great. I don’t have any aches or pains.” This is telling. …
Can connected health improve the lifestyle challenges patients face?
The job of a nurse has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades. I’ve witnessed these changes at close quarters and heard feedback from nurses in several different hospitals. The biggest change undoubtedly is the interaction with information technology and the move away from paper charting.
The theory behind this push, which is part of the federal government’s meaningful use policy, …
3 ways to make health IT work better for nurses
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By the time the next decade rolls in there will be no paper charts. There will probably still be paper floating around in various capacities, but there will be no one charting on paper. The term “charting” itself may become obsolete, like yonder or popinjay. The term EHR, which is what replaces the paper chart, won’t last either because it doesn’t …
EMRs remove the soul of the medical record. So, what’s next?
In recent months, Silicon Valley has surpassed Hollywood as America’s home for high-profile split ups.
Last month, computer security giant Symantec announced its intentions to split in two. And three days before that, HP announced plans to divide up into parts. In September, eBay announced its intention to spin off PayPal.
With enough twists and turns to fill a screenplay, the tech industry’s recent split-up saga raises a …
Silicon Valley breakups: Are there lessons for health care?
I understand that for some, digital health still might be a bitter pill, but the promise of techno-medical mumbo jumbo is bold and transformative. That being said, in my opinion, the “secret sauce” to digital health might be a bit outside the conventional “drug development” methodology — both in logistics and psychology.
Therefore, I thought it would be fun to take a page out of IBM’s Watson playbook. IBM recently used “cognitive …
What is the secret sauce to digital health?
The policy known as meaningful use was designed to ensure that clinicians and hospitals actually used the computers they bought with the help of government subsidies. In the last few months, though, it has become clear that the policy is failing. Moreover, the federal office that administers it is losing leaders faster than American Idol is losing viewers.
Because I believe that meaningful use is now doing more harm than good, I see these …
2014: The death of meaningful use?
Excerpts from The Guide to the Future of Medicine.
Enormous technological changes are heading our way. If they hit us unprepared, which we are now, they will wash away the medical system we know and leave it a purely technology–based service without personal interaction. Such a complicated system should …
What will future of medicine look like? Start here.
With the growing usage of EHRs, more and more doctors are bringing their computers and tablets with them into the exam room. But just because you’re using a computer in the exam room, it doesn’t mean that you’re using it properly. Computers can be one of the most beneficial tools you use in an exam room, or they can lead to …
Avoid these 4 mistakes when using a computer in the exam room
I’ve previously written about my experience with poorly designed electronic health records and how it negatively impacts provider happiness and patient safety. Apparently, I’m not alone in my experiences and my sentiments about this subject.
First, we have a study that validates the concern that EHRs waste time for doctors. Imagine the impact for primary care physicians who are already crammed for time, seeing patients in short time intervals just to keep their overhead.
Then, …
Money for nothing: The dire straits of EHRs
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