In my Quality Improvement class (health specific) we talked about this infamous report, as others above have stated... its blown wildly out of proportion. The first time I had actually heard about it was a family friend who is a chiropractor and was using it to brainwash me to go DC instead of MD/DO. Bad statistics. There are many errors made though, I'm not trying to pretend there aren't. But if someone was in the hospital for congenital heart problems... and their prognosis is very poor... and their Tylenol was accidentally given in half the dose it was ordered... or it was given 2 hours late... they counted this as an error. Now do you really think this person died because of that?
Being a health info mgmt major, i've seen what a PROPER medical informatics systems can do when PROPERLY implemented. We've all had or heard of miserable experiences with these new electronic record systems, but done right they will increase your productivity and improve the health care you give. They can be $$$ up front, but in the long run it can be very worthwhile. You can easily cross-reference drugs, and it can indicate to you when you have prescribed something contraindicative of another drug the patient is already on. I believe one of the biggest problems though, is the flow of health info between providers. If a patient has several problems and has a PCP, as well as 3 specialists they see... they may not remember all the medications they are on (you'd be surprised in the ER how often I ask a patient what meds they are on, and I get "a little round white one in the morning, an oval shaped yellow one for the heart twice a day, etc.") and its hard for you as a practicioner to make good choices with bad info.
The only thing I wonder about us new generation of docs is, will we rely too much on technology? Now you see residents and med students walking around with their PDA's, being able to reference anything at just a click away. Its like the same idea with using calculators too much in math class, students many times end up with poor math skills. It seems like the old generation of docs were forced to learn it and commit it to memory more. Any thoughts on this?
) it was a lot smaller with staples for a binding. In fact some of the new programs (launched in response to the IOM "study") use the aviation model of checklists and failsafes. I think a good argument can be made about increased reliance on technology being bad but I feel that's in the area of diagnostics and that is more due to defensive medicine and malpractice suits than anything else.
