Comments on: One physician’s less than stellar opinion of EMRs http://jerryfahrni.com/2009/08/one-physicians-less-than-stellar-opinion-of-emrs/ Pharmacy Informatics and Technology Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:39:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jerry Fahrni http://jerryfahrni.com/2009/08/one-physicians-less-than-stellar-opinion-of-emrs/comment-page-1/#comment-326 Jerry Fahrni Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:41:24 +0000 http://jerryfahrni.com/?p=1339#comment-326 You bring up a good point, Robert, but I was speaking generally about the healthcare industry in terms of the available systems. Many of the systems I use in my job as a pharmacists are less advanced than commercial systems designed to do similar things (databases, inventory management, barcode tracking, automated storage, automated dispensing, etc). For example, our Siemens Pharmacy system (which cost millions) is slow, cumbersome and has a poorly designed user interface. The systems that are sold by Siemens as part of their "integrated" solution are even worse. The pharmacy system offered by Meditech is better than the Siemens system in several ways, but still has a long way to go to be technologically advanced IMHO. In terms of an IT budget, I must humbly disagree with you on a couple of minor points. All large, advanced businesses have IT budgets along with other costs, but you see the ones that are good at it succeed, while those that manage things poorly fail. Hospitals, in general, do a poor job of managing their IT resources, but remain open because they are necessary. If hospitals had to be succeed on their own (without government funding, tax breaks, deep drug discounts, etc) to remain open I think you would see an entirely different structure in place. Of course this is my opinion and pretty much worthless as I am not responsible for any of those decisions. Thanks for stopping by. You bring up a good point, Robert, but I was speaking generally about the healthcare industry in terms of the available systems. Many of the systems I use in my job as a pharmacists are less advanced than commercial systems designed to do similar things (databases, inventory management, barcode tracking, automated storage, automated dispensing, etc). For example, our Siemens Pharmacy system (which cost millions) is slow, cumbersome and has a poorly designed user interface. The systems that are sold by Siemens as part of their “integrated” solution are even worse. The pharmacy system offered by Meditech is better than the Siemens system in several ways, but still has a long way to go to be technologically advanced IMHO. In terms of an IT budget, I must humbly disagree with you on a couple of minor points. All large, advanced businesses have IT budgets along with other costs, but you see the ones that are good at it succeed, while those that manage things poorly fail. Hospitals, in general, do a poor job of managing their IT resources, but remain open because they are necessary. If hospitals had to be succeed on their own (without government funding, tax breaks, deep drug discounts, etc) to remain open I think you would see an entirely different structure in place. Of course this is my opinion and pretty much worthless as I am not responsible for any of those decisions. Thanks for stopping by.

]]> By: Robert Simplicio http://jerryfahrni.com/2009/08/one-physicians-less-than-stellar-opinion-of-emrs/comment-page-1/#comment-325 Robert Simplicio Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:37:40 +0000 http://jerryfahrni.com/?p=1339#comment-325 There is a quite simple reason, which is easily determined, why Healthcare IT is "behind" consumer tech. It's called an IT budget, and for companies like banks, brokerage houses, e-commerce providers, search engine/orwellian providers, the IT budget pretty much IS their business. In healthcare, we have to pay for pesky things like Helical CT scanners, drugs, and a large group of well paid staff to do patient care. Oh, did I mention the tremendous amount of government/regulatory oversight that both restricts, at least to an extent, what you can do, and how much you can charge for it? Not to suggest that its a GREAT reason, but it's one that has been on my mind for some time as a reason that Healthcare IT hasn't hit its 2.0 sweetspot. There is a quite simple reason, which is easily determined, why Healthcare IT is “behind” consumer tech. It’s called an IT budget, and for companies like banks, brokerage houses, e-commerce providers, search engine/orwellian providers, the IT budget pretty much IS their business. In healthcare, we have to pay for pesky things like Helical CT scanners, drugs, and a large group of well paid staff to do patient care. Oh, did I mention the tremendous amount of government/regulatory oversight that both restricts, at least to an extent, what you can do, and how much you can charge for it?

Not to suggest that its a GREAT reason, but it’s one that has been on my mind for some time as a reason that Healthcare IT hasn’t hit its 2.0 sweetspot.

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