Talk with most physicians and healthcare providers these days and one topic seems to have total consensus: electronic medical records are bad! Yes, it’s true. Every job has its associated stresses and we have to accept most of these. However, it’s worth changing things if they are bad enough that you can no longer do the job you were trained to do at 100%. This is the case with electronic medical records and many healthcare providers are feeling ‘trapped’.
Some background: choosing to be a chiropractor was a great career choice for me. I love helping people and I love new and innovative ways of doing so. I have always been athletic and I enjoy helping people remain active and feeling good! It’s my career and my life! I enjoy working with my peers in the medical and fitness fields. I have always awakened in the morning excited to come to work and help people.
Enter the ‘dark cloud’ of electronic medical records. Medical practices forever changed with the creation of electronic medical records. If you don’t believe me, just do a search online and/or ask any of the doctors you see or know. What used to be close face-t0-face interaction with patients has been replaced with doctors looking at computer screens, audio-recording visits, or having someone following the doctor around taking the notes. The doctor/patient relationship was damaged and that always sat uneasy with me. Yes, I’m an old-school type of doctor (I didn’t say I was old!) in that I like to spend time with my patients. I think that is the BEST way to get great results. You and your insurance pay for care from your doctor. Doctor/patient care should not be spent dealing with the ‘frustrations’ of modern medicine. This is another reason why we do not use assistants with patient care: all the work done at our office is 1:1 with the doctor. It may not be as financially advantageous for the practice, but it ensures that your time and money are spent with the highest level practitioner so that you, the patient, gets the best results.
We have been using electronic medical records for several years and have had continual problems on many levels. Every update comes with its own set of problems. Fix one thing and something else stops working. The cycle repeats. The report generator creates reports that are bulky and throw in information just to make the report longer. Useless. With electronic medical records, its is virtually impossible to track patient care over a period of time. The systems are slow, impersonal, and frustrating. It’s one thing to have to change clinically relevant information each visit. It’s another to just have extraneous information just to fill in boxes. Even the sign-in process for the patients is a hassle. Unfortunately, it’s more about filling in boxes now than it is about patient care! The list of issues goes on…
The simple answer is to just go with another company. Sadly, it’s not that simple. All my peers have the same or similar complaints with their software. There simply isn’t anything out there that will do what we need it to do in an efficient and successful manner. I do not think that technology has made doctor/patient interactions better. It’s quite the contrary. Doctors feel trapped by their software now and there is only one way out!
We have decided to stop using electronic medical records and have gone back to hand-written notes. Old school? Yes! Better? Yes! It is better for doctor/patient interaction and it’s more secure as your records cannot be hacked. It allows us to spend more time interacting with you instead of with a computer. Sometimes, the best way forward is to take a step back and we are doing this for your benefit as well as for ours.
Smiles for everyone!
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