The $27 billion spent on EHR (electronic health records) is money squandered, writes Charles Krauthammer. It has demoralized good physicians and led to patient neglect.
I was reminded of this exchange upon receiving my med-school class’s 40th-reunion report and reading some of the entries. In general, my classmates felt fulfilled by family, friends and the considerable achievements of their professional lives. But there was an undercurrent of deep disappointment, almost demoralization, with what medical practice had become.
In a study from the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, the report found that ER doctors spend 43 percent of their time entering electronic records info and only 28 percent with patients. Another study reported that family-practice physicians spend an average of 48 minutes a day just entering clinical data. Read more here from Mr. Krauthammer on the money squandered, patients neglected, good physicians demoralized, along with President Obama’s broken promise in 2009 that EHR would not only “save billions of dollars ($77 billion a year) and thousands of jobs, it will save lives.”
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