Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2011
I am encouraged by the number of articles about emrs that I have seen lately. Most people won’t grasp the benefits of electronic records until they have a head slapping moment like Ms. Gomez had in the story quoted below:
Jennifer Gomez sat at her doctor’s office in Evanston after her appointment, waiting for a handwritten prescription. Minutes later, her doctor wondered why Gomez was still in the office.
What the 20-year-old Loyola University Chicago student didn’t know was that not only had the prescription been sent to the pharmacy, it also was ready to be filled.
"The prescription was at my pharmacy before I even walked out of the office, because everything is computerized," Gomez said of her experience at a clinic run by NorthShore University HealthSystem. "I was surprised, expecting to wait."
Gomez is among the first patients to experience the benefits of electronic medical records, as the nation’s health care industry moves from paper files to computerized records. The momentum is expected to pick up this year as federal stimulus money to help with the transition is starting to arrive at doctor offices and hospitals across the U.S.
Already, hundreds of hospital operators nationwide, including the largest ones in the Chicago area such as NorthShore, have entered the digital age, allowing patients to access email alerts to remind them of appointments, request medical test results or easily connect with insurance companies, pharmacies and other key players of the health care system.
Industry observers project the digitizing of medical records could save the nation’s health care system hundreds of millions of dollars because it would reduce or eliminate redundant testing and the occurrence of errors in patients’ files, among other benefits.
It is just a matter of out of sight, out of mind until you experience first hand the benefits and convenience provided by electronic records. In the digital age, when we communicate at literally the speed of light about mundane details such as where we bought our coffee this morning (I went to Peet’s), it seems like a no brainer to use this amazing communications infrastructure to increase our health too.
