Electronic medical records, electronic health records . blogging doggerel - What Good are Electronic Health Records (EHRs)

If doctors in small practices, 85% of all physicians,
can’t afford them and distrust them as clinicians;

If all this grandiose talk about information infrastructure,
does nothing but cause massive practice pattern rupture;

If rhetoric about effectiveness and efficiency is mostly theoretical,
not to mention being doctor antithetical and too often hypothetical;

If the 100 EHR systems out there being hawked and sold,
cannot even talk to one another, if God’s truth be told;

If most doctors regard EHRs as nothing but a giant invoice,
and not a desirable communication device of first choice;

If comparative studies of those who don’t use EHRs,
show similar data, results, errors – of quality the 3Rs;

If doctors cannot use EHRs to communicate,
With one other, patients, or hospitals to keep things straight;

If EHRs impede practice productivity, or patient throughput,
where the revenues are, why would doctors up with EHRs put?

What good is this obsession with more and more information,
if you cannot use the data for more effective consultation?

What good are these EHRs if they are not doctor usable,
And geeks develop them to make things more confusable?

Much of what I have said is frightful and tongue-in-cheek,
and may place me squarely among a troglodyte clique.

But when reformers advocate $20 to $50 billion on EHRs spent,
We’re talking real money, even if well meant or by the feds lent.