In a nutshell: technology and progress in health IT

We have a new electronic medical health record system at our hospital. It was introduced with what I believe is a short and ineffective training program for physicians followed by a far too short on-location use of experts to help the doctors and nurses learn the new system. It is frankly a pain in the neck to access the computer from outside the hospital due to the multiple layers of security and passwords you must use. It is simpler and less complicated at the hospital, but the request for frequent change of the password for security purposes makes remembering the password problematic for me especially when I am sitting in the ER at 2:00 a.m. sleep deprived and wanting to get home.

On an average day, the computer adds a minimum of 10 minutes of work per patient seen. We have electronic health records to comply with the massive number of Federal mandates requiring it and to avoid the financial penalties for not complying. The Feds offered each hospital an 11 million dollar incentive for putting in these systems which made their decision to computerize far simpler.

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