Comments on: Electronic Health Information – Small Steps, but No Giant Leaps

By: emr software

emr software — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:08:52 +0000

Implementing new technology is the key to success in medical business. Maintaining the medical records of the patient as Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) is one of the recent technologies that would help the growth of the medical business and could improve the quality and accuracy of medical-record documentation.It will definitely lead to better care.

By: Emma Jackson

Emma Jackson — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:15:27 +0000

I am not a professional but I really amazed with all the advantages of electronic health records as you can correctly prescribe all the medications.

By: David

David — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:26:05 +0000

While hospitals can definitely benefit from emr , smaller practices can benefit from electronic medical records as well, especially when integrated with practice management software.

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:14:02 +0000

Electronic health records are key to the future of the American health care system, but there are steps that those of us who are neither hospital IT directors nor high-level policymakers can take to both improve our own health care and guide the coming change in the right direction:

* Sign up for an online patient health record account – I use HealthVault.
* Talk to our doctors (and other providers) to make sure that they see the value of electronic health records.
* Talk with friends and family to get them to take the same steps.

We can make the most of our amazing information technology to get healthier without giving up our privacy or spending any more than we already are.

By: Joseph j7uy5

Joseph j7uy5 — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:33:56 +0000

The implementation of electronic medical records faces huge obstacles. In particular, the use of stimulus funds has been criticized in conservative circles: Health 'Reformers' Ignore Facts, echoed by Greg Mankiw.

Preventative care, disease management and electronic medical records are also constantly cited as big cost-savers. The idea here is that if our health-care system was set up to prevent disease rather than just treat it, and could do so without duplicative paper records, it could save money. It's a great hypothesis, but research does not indicate it amounts to much. "In many cases," as Mr. Elmendorf testified regarding such initiatives, "those studies do not support claims of reductions in health spending or budgetary reductions."

This is a dumb argument, and you'd think Mankiw and Pipes would know that. The idea is not to reduce the total outlay of money. The idea is to make the health care system more efficient. That way, more of the money is devoted to helping patients, as opposed to moving stacks of paper around.Having said that, I personally doubt that the use of stimulus funds, as proposed, is the best approach. I would favor funding an open-source group, such as the Mozilla Foundation, or even Wikipedia, to take the US government's VA Hospital EMR system and adapt it to civilian hospital use. The VA system is already open-source, as a work of the government. It is well-tested. Many doctors and nurses do at least some of their training in VA facilities, so there is a widespread, established user base. The system has been demonstrated to be able to interconnect successfully, and can handle a very large amount of data.The resulting software would be free. The development would require some funding, as would the ongoing maintenance.This strategy would be perceived as anti-business, but it would get the job done.