A match made in… um…. well, made somewhere
A simple recipe for wasting time the American Healthcare way:
Take a simple doctor's office that's been accumulating paper records for the past 40 years or so. Add a spiffy new computer system that allegedly converts the office to a paperless office and forces the doctors to lug around PC tablet computers. Add patients, and what do you get?
- "Can you please fill out this new information sheet?"
"I filled one out when I started using this doctor"
"Oh, we can't use those forms because we'd have to hire someone to type them into the computer" - "Can you fill out this piece of paper that describes your symptoms" (the old inefficient way to describe your symptoms was to describe them to a nurse, who could write them down on the appointment memo sheet for the doctor to look at later. But to do it this way in the new improved paperless office would require giving the nurses tablet computers, and then how could you tell the difference between a nurse and a doctor?)
- Loooooooooooooong waits between the nurse (who takes the piece of paper describing your symptoms, asks you your symptoms, and checks your (high. Ugh.) blood pressure,) and the doctor (who asks you your symptoms, opens up the computer, then spends about five minutes navigating through the menu before they can actually examine you.)
- And after they examine you, they need to wander off to type all of this information into their computer before they tell you that there aren't any more tests and you can go.
When we went to the doctor's today, this went on and on and on for a hour. On a day when there was no waiting list.
It's truly inspiring. It's almost as inspiring when you come into the office and see yet another representative of Big Pharma there to coax the doctors into yet another barkingly expensive wonder drug (that only makes test mice explode one out of 100 times, really, we mean it this time!)
In the grand scheme of things, waiting forever isn't a problem (I'd suspect that even in sensible countries that don't have 15% of their population uninsured you'll still find doctor's offices that have gone computer happy,) but, boy, it's certainly annoying.
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Unfortunately, about a hour after posting how my company had a clue, they did something clueless: http://www.portlandfeed.com/2007/01/12/an-inconvenient-open-house/
Sigh.
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Sounds like plain old stupidity.
My American healthcare experiences are currently with a giant megacorp network, which has figured out their computerized methods (almost). There’s a PC in each room. The nurse puts in your symptoms, the doctor can review it, he can add notes, order prescriptions, and so on. Test results, appointments, etc. can be accessed online.
Quality of actual medical care aside, at least they’ve figured out how to do the records side of things…