According to The Washington Monthly (a DC-based magazine which purports to be non-partisan, but which lists as its contributors former Enron advisor Paul Krugman, outspoken media personality Rachel Maddow, and former president Bill Clinton), the answer to all the waste and inefficiency in our health care system can be traced to one source: medical records that aren't computerized. On the one hand, I admire this bold assertion, and the fact that it could be made with a straight face.
On the other, one presumes that the WM is read by at least a few folks, some of whom may well be in positions of authority. Which is a shame, since the premise is so far off base, and the lack of actual, you know, data to support the assertion is so glaring.
Let's start by granting that digitizing records could help in a number of ways: fewer dead trees, of course, but also more easily accessible patient info, the ability to quickly cross-reference treatment modes, and potentially speed up billing and payment. All of these are worthy goals, none of them will dramatically lower health care costs. In fact, given that there's a demonstrable front-end captial expenditure to actually digitize the information, the actual payback time may be years out.
This is not to say that we shouldn't pursue this; there are obviously good and sufficient reasons to do so. But to claim that this will directly and substantively reduce health care costs is a pipe dream.
UPDATE: Be sure to check out Bill's report on what happens when EMR meets Westworld.
ADDENDUM: I'm more than a little annoyed with myself for having succumbed to suggestion; the email I received touting the linked article read, in part, "digitized health care could help save the nation from insolvency while improving and extending millions of lives at the same time," and I read the article with a pre-conceived idea of what it was saying. I still maintain that EMR is not a magic potion, but in fairness, the article doesn't specifically claim that it is.
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