EHR and the Hidden Agenda

So you’re thinking: “Another article about Document Integrity and the Electronic Health Record (EHR). Haven’t we had enough?” Granted, there’s a lot out there: Opinions, Vendors and Insurance “drivers”, Physicians, and Hospitals. Caught in between the cross-fire? Patients! So how does this translate into meaningful take-aways for you, for iData… really for all of us? Let’s get into the facts.  Below are excerpts from an article by Hermann W. Børg, M.D., in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Summer 2017, which scream against the outlandish propagation of EHR systems and related requirements. As Dr. Børg concludes,

“Well-designed research studies refute the enthusiastic expectations about EHR. Such studies provide very valuable evidence in discussion of its future directions. However, the research studies per se will not rectify the accelerating EHR debacle. Powerful EHR proponents will not be persuaded by scientific data. They have an agenda, and the EHR serves it well. “

[read more=”Click here to Read More”]

To wit, here is a blow-by-blow evisceration of the “perceived” benefit of EHRs:

• “The gulf between optimistic projections and the disappointing reality of mandated EHRs became blindingly obvious.”
• “The EHR controversy is not a struggle between “backward physicians” and “forward-thinking technologists.” It is a dispute of pragmatic physicians who have hard work to do in limited time with serious obligations and liabilities, versus the profit-driven, liability-free EHR pushers.”
• “Government and corporations claim to be ardent followers of evidence based medicine. Yet, they did not bother to adhere to such principles while promoting EHR. When this cognitive dissonance was noted, they produced several studies favoring EHR use… the conclusions presented in those papers were immediately considered to be questionable by the medical community… summarized as “exercises in wishful thinking.”
• “EHRs have many drawbacks for patients. The principal disadvantage is a decreased quality of medical care and increased medical risks resulting from overly enthusiastic implementation of EHR.”
• “Because the EHR combines the medical and billing information, the data at stake includes health and financial information. Compromising the EHR does not require sophisticated hackers. People with access to the record can be bribed, or may simply act recklessly, compromising the privacy of millions.”
• “Research demonstrated that Clinical Decision Support (CDS) has actually decreased physicians’ efficiency and quality of care. Those counter-intuitive results were caused by the inability of the CDS modules to emulate the thinking process of the physician.”
• “[The EHR] transformed concise, clinically relevant medical record notes into a voluminous, redundant, and convoluted billing justification document. Medically pertinent data are lost in the sea of clinically irrelevant information and erroneous auto-generated texts.”
• “The need for the government to bribe and coerce physicians to adopt the EHR by mandates and regulations is a sign of its low value.”
• “EHR-related hardware, software, support, and training are very expensive.44 This puts serious nancial hardships on medical practices, which are already struggling with massive government regulation, bureaucracy, constant changes…”

Conclusions

Amalgomating the findings of this article, couldn’t be better articulated than the synthsized conclusions made by Dr. Børg:

Call us at iData to see how we fill the gaps in your EHR, accurately complete the patient’s story, increase deserved revenues, and avoid unintended liabilities.

[/read]