I was just reading through Jamie’s post on EMR and EHR talking about showing EMR “meaningful use” and EMR reporting. She provides some really interesting examples about the challenges of reporting out of an EMR that wasn’t designed to report those various data elements.

This discussion caused me to think about the impact that having to report on meaningful use will have on an EMR implementation. An EMR implementation is hard enough as it is now. Now, not only will an EMR user have to focus on learning all the new EMR functionality and translating their various clinical workflows into an EMR workflow, but they’ll also have to take into consideration the reporting requirements that will be necessary to get access to the EMR stimulus money and show meaningful use.

Certainly some of this planning could be a good thing and probably should have been done regardless of whether a doctor wanted EMR stimulus money or not. However, anyone that’s had to deal with reporting knows that it takes a lot of work and planning to get it right.

It will be interesting to see how much of an impact these reporting requirements will have on the already abysmal successful EMR implementation success rates. Granted, most doctors implementing an EMR won’t properly address these requirements during implementation and will just suffer the consequences of not showing meaningful use when that time comes.

I find it interesting how many people are propping up electronic medical records as the silver bullet that’s going to solve our healthcare woes. It’s going to lower costs, improve care and solve world peace.

Let there be no doubt that the promises of electronic medical records are real. My problem is that many of them are just far overstated.

This time article does a pretty good job of putting some of these promises in perspective. The article on electronic medical records ends with this insightful commentary:

Doctors and patients live in a world of painful, pressing questions. The great physicians I’ve known seek answers through personal commitment to each patient and judgment born of practical experience — neither of which I have found in a machine.

I think this highlights an important point. Technology isn’t going to take a poor doctor and make them good. In fact, in some respects an EMR just exacerbates any problems a doctor has already. This isn’t just true for doctors. It’s true for anyone in a clinic. Rare is the person who poorly charts in the paper world and by some miracle is able to chart well in an EMR.

What technology does have the potential to do is take an already good doctor and make them great. Let’s just not think it’s some magical silver bullet.