After 30 years or so, there is still much joy for me in the practice of medicine. Electronic medical record (EMR) systems doesn’t make the list. Chances are that if you asked your own doctor to assemble a Frustration List, that EMR issues would be among the top five entries. Over the past 15 or 20 years, I have struggled through several of them. At one point, I was using 4 distinct systems: 2 different hospital EMR systems, our office practice EMR and our endoscopy center’s software. Does this sound like fun? Think of all the passwords I kept track of! There is a recurrent EMR event in every system that brings doctors to our knees. Here’s the simple phrase that transforms even a stoic doctor into a sweating and trembling practitioner: The EMR system will be upgraded overnight. Let me explain. One might think that a computer upgrade would be a desirable event. For example, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary definition of upgrade is to replace something with a more us
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.