DB'S MEDICAL RANTS

Internal medicine, American health care, and especially medical education

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Health care IT and the airline industry

I look forward to reading Bob Wachter’s new book on health it.  He has an interesting op-ed today in the NY Times – Why Health IT is still so Bad  I love this quote:

I interviewed Boeing’s top cockpit designers, who wouldn’t dream of green-lighting a new plane until they had spent thousands of hours watching pilots in simulators and on test flights. This principle of user-centered design is part of aviation’s DNA, yet has been woefully lacking in health care software design.

Claims about safety in medicine often invoke comparisons to airlines.  There are many problems with this analogy, but for IT, Wachter is spot on.  The users (physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc) are rarely considered.  Patients are never considered.

I love the idea of EHRs, but I hate how it is being done.  Companies expect physicians, nurses, pharmacists to adjust to their programs.  I see no effort to work with us (the health care professionals) to make the programs patient friendly.  I see no understanding of how the current computer programs interfere with good care.

Unfortunately, I fear that the government agencies have magnified the problem.

We clearly should look to the airlines and how they use technology for airplanes.  To not do so puts our patients at risk.

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