Although I agree that EHRs largely suck, it is not the elephant in the room. From a technology perspective, if you really want to fundamentally change healthcare then you have to tackle diagnosis. For the majority of illness and disease, we still do not have a good set of technologies that diagnose accurately, quickly, and cheaply. Instead a physician makes an educated guess based on symptoms and sometimes on tests. Tests which give clues but rarely a definitive answer.
I don't know what the answer is, but I know that the sooner we take the "art" out of medicine, the sooner healthcare will get a lot better.
Comments
Although I agree that EHRs largely suck, it is not the elephant in the room. From a technology perspective, if you really want to fundamentally change healthcare then you have to tackle diagnosis. For the majority of illness and disease, we still do not have a good set of technologies that diagnose accurately, quickly, and cheaply. Instead a physician makes an educated guess based on symptoms and sometimes on tests. Tests which give clues but rarely a definitive answer.
I don't know what the answer is, but I know that the sooner we take the "art" out of medicine, the sooner healthcare will get a lot better.
For those that haven't seen or read Paul Graham's bit on ongoing diagnosis: http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html (#7)
Or if you prefer to watch it from 2012's PyCon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ITLdmfdLI#t=1587
Maybe an app to diagnose malign melanoma Galaxy Zoo-style? :-)