There was a recent report pointing to increased Medicare costs when patients returned to traditional Medicare, of course assuming that…
Morning Headlines 5/28/13
DOD, VA to Clear Claims Backlog
DoD responds to accusations that its EHR decision is hindering efforts to reduce the veterans’ disability claims backlog by outlining a cross-department plan of attack. It includes providing VA Benefits personnel direct login access to DoD’s EMR and improving the format of DoD treatment records so that they are more portable.
Quebec implementing $1.6 billion electronic health record system
Quebec announces that it will move ahead with a proposed province-wide transition to EHRs. The announcement follows a successful two-year pilot program.
National critic of health care information technology says Marin General should heed nurses’ advice
EHR critic Scot Silverstein, MD interviews with the Martin Independent Journal about the potential dangers of EHRs following recent patient safety-related protests from a nurses union at Martin General Hospital after the hospital implemented a CPOE system.
from the article-“Silverstein earned a medical degree from Boston University and subsequently completed a two-year fellowship in medical informatics at Yale University School of Medicine. He served as Merck Research Laboratories’ director of scientific information in the early 2000s before serving for a time as a full-time professor at Drexel University. Today, in addition to teaching part-time, Silverstein works on medical liability cases for plaintiff attorneys.
Silverstein said he started assisting on the liability cases after his mother died as the result of an electronic health care record error that resulted in her not being given the proper heart medicine. Silverstein said his mother’s case was not an anomaly.”
This bio says it all…
Regarding the Marin County, CA article quoting me.
The CEO of the hospital, Mr. Domanico stated that “more than 150 studies conducted since 2007 have confirmed that organizations using health information technology, like CPOE, have seen positive outcomes.”
I think he’s referring to a biased and scientifically defective ONC paper of 154 selected studies: “The Benefits Of Health Information Technology: A Review Of The Recent Literature Shows Predominantly Positive Results”
My colleagues and I refuted (dare I say trashed) that paper pretty thoroughly here:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/03/benefits-of-health-information.html
Re: DZA MD
The bio is incomplete. “Silverstein works on medical liability cases for plaintiff attorneys” should be “Silverstein works on EHR-related medical liability and evidence tampering cases for plaintiff and defense attorneys.” The latter, however, have not expressed as much interest in my work as the former, but really should, as work with the former implies injury and/or tampering has already occurred. The defense counsel could help steer their organizations away from bad health IT and bad health IT-related behaviors.