Will doctors follow digital hospitals?

Paperless hospitals are being announced, but experts say it's a long road to get that way and a longer one to get doctors on board.

By Cheryl Jackson, AMNews staff. May 20, 2002.

They are coming. Eventually.

Paperless heart hospitals have been announced in Indianapolis. A paperless acute care facility is being built in Birmingham, Ala. A Mountain View, Calif., hospital is converting to a paperless system.

"The goal is not the elimination of paper as much as the efficiency of using technology to make your life easier," said consultant Manuel Lowenhaupt, MD.

Such systems can save doctors and staff time by allowing access to information remotely and saving trips to hospitals, proponents say.

But hospitals have had problems getting physicians to use technology.

"I get paid for every day that I visit, and it's not clear to me that decreasing the length of stay is a financial benefit to me," Dr. Lowenhaupt said.

No one can predict how the hospitals will translate for the typical practicing physician, he said.

"I'm optimistic that in time we're going to get there. But the one truth today is we just don't know. The holy grail is improving the physician's productivity and optimizing the physician's practice," he added.

Many problems in working with physicians involve communication, Dr. Lowenhaupt said, including understanding a physician's written orders, or doctors duplicating orders for the same patient. "Those breakdowns in communication can create medical errors and expose me to liability."

Initially, he said, it's faster to jot down an entry than it is to log onto a computer, identifying the physicians and the patient. "But if you look at the bigger picture, I can save time avoiding all those other things. But if I'm not that comfortable as a physician, I'm going to have some barriers to entry that are significant. [...]