Electronic Medical Records Are Strangling American Medicine
MedPage Today October 23, 2022
— The implications for burnout are staggering
Last month, 15,000 nurses went on strike in Minnesota in the largest private-sector nursing strike in U.S. history. They were protesting understaffing and overwork at a time when provider burnout has reached epidemic proportions — approximately 63% of physicians and 80% of nurses now report symptoms of burnout. Meanwhile, healthcare continues to struggle with overwhelming cost pressures. We still spend more money for worse outcomes than any other developed country. As a surgical resident, I’ve heard too many structural explanations for cost and burnout problems that overlook a specific, fixable culprit: Our electronic medical records (EMRs) are still hopelessly broken.
In 2022, software is suffocating American medicine.
The 2009 HITECH Act kicked off...