Despite consistent and repeated evidence that electronic patient record systems can be expensive, resource-hungry, failure-prone and unfit for purpose, we need more studies to ‘prove’ what we know to be the case: that replacing paper with technology will inevitably save money, improve health outcomes, assure safety and empower staff and patients.
Paper-based systems are also failure-prone and unfit for purpose. They just fail in familiar ways that the old guard have accepted as just part of the business.
All systems fail at some point. Paper-based systems have the advantage of failing locally. Electronic systems have a horrible tendancy to fail globally.
As the saying goes, to err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
Bad electronic record system is probably worst then paper based one. Good electronic record system might be better then paper based one. The trouble is that quality is not the thing that wins you big contract with big institution all too often, so I would not be surprised if the common electronic systems were the bad ones.
Agreed, but we are also heavily biased towards this view as a community. I think we should try to steer the conversation away from this particular point.
But dear god... some people manage to make some awful software.
Comments
Paper-based systems are also failure-prone and unfit for purpose. They just fail in familiar ways that the old guard have accepted as just part of the business.
All systems fail at some point. Paper-based systems have the advantage of failing locally. Electronic systems have a horrible tendancy to fail globally.
As the saying goes, to err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
Bad electronic record system is probably worst then paper based one. Good electronic record system might be better then paper based one. The trouble is that quality is not the thing that wins you big contract with big institution all too often, so I would not be surprised if the common electronic systems were the bad ones.
Agreed, but we are also heavily biased towards this view as a community. I think we should try to steer the conversation away from this particular point.
But dear god... some people manage to make some awful software.