At my EHR/ARRA presentation in Austin the speaker before me, Jill Lewis, CEO of Urology Austin (who did an excellent job), was trying to describe some of the doctors who were having a harder time adopting and learning to use their EMR software. You knew that she wanted to say “older doctors” but didn’t want to possibly offend some of the possibly older doctors in the room. Smart move.

As she was struggling for the right description of the doctors who were having a harder time learning or adopting their EMR, a nice GYN in the front shouted out “traditional doctors.” I thought the description was perfect. So, from now on I’ll be using the term “traditional doctors” when describing those that are averse to adopting an EMR. I think this is actually a great description since the fact of the matter is that while many of the “traditional doctors” are older, there are some older doctors who are wonderful adopters of EMR and there are younger doctors who don’t want to go anywhere near an EMR.