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...cheerleaders - including the one in the Oval Office - are right, computerized medical records will save us all: save jobs, save money, reduce errors, and transform health care as we know it. In a January speech, President Obama evoked the promise of new technology: This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests," he said, and he has proposed investing $50 billion over the next five years to help make it happen...
...computers: it helps us avoid redundant tests, gather huge amounts of data for research, screen automatically for drug interactions, all with no problems with our famously illegible handwriting. I would be happy if every patient could hand me a digital file of everything about him; it could really save time on first visits. But against our government's push to get all patients' records computerized we must keep in mind there will be a cost to this - far beyond the billions to be spent setting it up. Many of us in medicine are concerned that the greatest cost will...
...multiple systems already out there to talk to each other? It would be a task to make Reagan's Star Wars plan seem quite manageable. But that is only the beginning; really hard is going to be getting this multi-billion dollar juggernaut to actually save us money. (Read "Faith and Healing: A Forum...
Though this tends to be the message, all too often the mechanism is much simpler. Computerized medicine means both more information - and less medicine. Less therapy, less surgery and less testing too. That's how it saves money. A variety of promising terms describe it - terms like targeted treatment, algorithmic patient-care, fiscally responsible medicine and evidence-based practice - but for doctors treating patients, one word describes how computerized records save money. Denial...
...first - though bills for them might not get paid. Now when findings aren't bad enough to "justify" expensive tests or treatments, (according to sources chosen by - you guessed it - insurance companies) the computer tells everyone, immediately, "you're going to eat this." Might this eliminate unnecessary testing and save money? Sure. But who determines what is necessary? Who should a patient trust to make her medical decisions? Can the government or an insurance company be as good an advocate as her doctor...