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Doctors need to take a leading role on electronic medical records

With EMRs becoming an inevitability, it's essential for the physician's voice to be heard in how the technology gets implemented.

Editorial. July 5, 2004.

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With so many heavy hitters in government -- starting with President Bush -- pushing for their use, the question of physicians' adoption of electronic medical records is not if, but when.

But before there's a when, there are a few key hows that need to be answered. Before EMRs are in every office, doctors need to know how to make a standardized technological platform, how to make sure records are secure, and how to make sure the costs don't completely fall on physicians as yet another unfunded mandate.

Perhaps the most important how is the how of ensuring that the physician's voice is heard in the process of answering those questions, creating EMR systems that will allow the gains in patient safety, efficiency and cost savings that advocates say can be achieved. Recently, the AMA's House of Delegates took actions that reaffirmed the organization's active involvement in EMRs, making sure the answer to that how is by bringing the collective voice of America's physicians to the discussion that will end up transforming the way physicians conduct their work.

Right now, various surveys show that some 10% of American physicians use EMRs, and that few of those physicians have systems that allow them to exchange information with a physician using a different system.

It used to be said the problem was that physicians were technophobic, but the reasons for staying with paper have little to do with being a Luddite.

Delegates at June's AMA Annual Meeting, during a hearing on resolutions related to EMRs, spoke of looking at systems that appeared to do similar things, yet cost anywhere from $30,000 to $70,000 per physician, not including licensing and support fees that continue to be paid long after the initial purchase. Also, there were worries about how quickly those systems could become obsolete, and the inability to transfer an EMR to a colleague that has an EMR with a different software platform.