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Senator Grassley: You’re on Track About EMR Problems, But Here Are Some More Questions to Ask

An article in today’s Washington Post links to a letter written by Senator Charles E. Grassley.

The letter is directed at 10 EMR (electronic medical record) vendors, and asks very pointed questions about whether the vendors have been negligent in not addressing patient safety issues in their technologies.

Senator Grassley, you have the scent and you’re on the trail.  There are several other questions you should be asking these vendors:

  • Prior to the HITECH Act, why did EMR vendors promote and government policy tolerate non-interoperable EMRs?  Health care isn’t like computer operating systems — where competing, non-interoperable tech is fine.  Lives are at stake. 
  • Why is the failure and de-install rate of EMRs so high?
  • Why have EMRs cost so much?
  • Why have vendors paid so little attention to the usability issue…even HIMSS’ recent study acknowledges the seriousness of this problem.
  • Why is the government favoring payment for EMRs over other equally promising or more promising technology.  From the Nutting report, Initial Lessons From the First National Demonstration Project on Practice Transformation to a Patient-Centered Medical Home:

…[I]t is possible and sometimes preferable to implement e-prescribing, local hospital system connections, evidence at the point of care, disease registries, and interactive patient Web portals without an EMR.

EMR

Graphic from Lyle. Berkowitz MD, Improving EMRs PowerPoint, http://drlyle.blogspot.com/2009/04/improving-emrs-2009.html April 2009

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to republish this post with attribution.

8 Comments

  1. Vince Kuraitis on October 25, 2009 at 4:54 pm

    Sen. Grassley letter to EMR vendors should be asking many more questions. http://bit.ly/2m4LA6 #hchit #healthit #EHR #hitpol #HIE



  2. arthurwlane on October 26, 2009 at 6:59 am

    Senator Grassley: You’re on Track About EMR Problems, But Here Are Some More Questions to Ask (@VinceKuraitis ): http://bit.ly/p4Hi4



  3. Medicity on October 26, 2009 at 7:16 am

    RT @arthurwlane: Sen. Grassley on Track About EMR Problems, But Here Are Some More Questions to Ask (@VinceKuraitis ): http://bit.ly/p4Hi4



  4. RWJF Pioneer on October 26, 2009 at 10:24 am

    @VinceKuraitis — the 10 additional questions that EHR vendors should answer http://bit.ly/p4Hi4



  5. Susan Promislo on October 26, 2009 at 11:00 am

    Reacting to Grassley ltr. to EMR vendors in Wash. Post, Vince Kuraitis asks addl ?s re: why EMRs not meeting potential http://ow.ly/wDrp



  6. Susan Promislo on October 26, 2009 at 11:01 am

    Reacting to Grassley ltr. to EMR vendors in Wash. Post, @VinceKuraitis asks addl ?s re: why EMRs not meeting potential http://ow.ly/wDrp



  7. Susan Promislo on October 26, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Reacting to Grassley ltr. to EMR vendors in Wash. Post, Vince Kuraitis asks addl ?s re: why EMRs not meeting potential http://ow.ly/wDrp



  8. Practice Fusion on October 28, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Pssst! Senator Grassley! Vince Kuraitis has a few more questions you should ask those legacy #EHR vendors … http://tinyurl.com/yf8xzdd