No surprise doctors dislike electronic health records

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If there was a wearable that could alert you and your doctor if you were in danger of having a heart attack, would you want it? I sure would. But apparently, not everyone feels the same way. Take Dr. James Madara, CEO of the American Medical Association, for example. Earlier in June, he took time to rant about how technology is overrunning healthcare in his speech at the AMA annual meeting in Chicago (IL). “From ineffective electronic health records (EHR), to an explosion of direct-to-consumer digital health products, to apps of mixed quality,” said Madara, according to his prepared remarks, "this is the digital snake oil of the early 21st century.”

Certainly, much of the US healthcare system now has electronic health records. And it’s largely ineffective. According to a survey released early this year by HIMSS, a health IT trade group, only 29% of physicians report positive benefits from electronic health records. And an AMA survey found that nearly one-half of physicians report implementing the technology has resulted in a higher costs, lower productivity and reduced efficiency. So it’s not hard to understand why many healthcare providers have a jaundiced view of the technology, and why they bristle at the notion of funneling oceans of remote patient monitoring data into the system.


No surprise doctors dislike electronic health records