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EHRs -- Is It Just Me, or Are They Worthless


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My EHR has some good things, and some bad things. The worst thing is its spell checker. It is horrible, especially when it comes to medical terminology or medications.  I started to chuckle when I just typed in "amitirptyline" (reversing two letters by mistake) and it immediately said, "Do you mean panty-liners?"  Where did this program get its dictionary?  I've complained before to them saying that Google has the best spell-checker, followed by MS Word. But they said they don't have the resources to do better. I also don't have the option of adding my own words.

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A lot of EHR have their faults. EHR's are beneficial to insurance companies, malpractice lawsuits, and management to keep taps on everyone easier, but it does create clear and concise information quickly and helpful if patients have a history in that particular EHR. Many hospitals in my area use Epic or Cerner– I use Cerner daily. I believe the biggest problem is no communication between EHR (which won't happen) and would help patients have better outcomes in shorter time. More transparency with medical history for past diagnoses/surgeries, current/past meds, psych history, etc. Thoughts? 

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My Dragon speak won't learn while connected to our mediocre EHR.

 

It won't learn naturopath (I consider that Freudian) and it won't learn areola and when I say AC joint it spells out BEFORE DINNER joint - so now my patient smokes a joint before dinner. 

 

So, Dragon could learn and I have taught it before but it won't work with the server our EHR is on. Chalk another one up for technology supposed to make my life easier. 

 

Our EHR won't put up a big red warning for true medical allergies but will list 4000 other things about a drug including a potential contraindication with a drug prescribed ONCE 3 years ago. Very useless.

 

An old EHR had a calculator with the peds dosing built in and let you pick how many mg per kg and it helped. This one is idiotic - no help. It will let you Rx at ridiculous measures without even a blink. Thought it was supposed to help me.

 

So, I can still type faster than it can think and that upsets it. I love Dragon but wish this EHR would work with it.

 

ANYTHING but clicking stupid boxes to get meaningless use points...................

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I am in corrections now

 

EHR has been a HUGE help on coordination of care - talking huge here...

 

However I am unsure it actually helps deliver better care.... faster maybe (once it is set up it is easy to dig into past records)

 

 

having been through 3 different EMR's (Centricty, Practice fusion and CorEmr). I am not overly sold on them in the pure sense of treating a patient, although they are getting ALOT better as they get refined...... I do think that we are heading for better things in the future as they get better and better and more integrated -like being able to import labs and hospital reports in useable format, not just a PDF.

 

I do have to laugh as my old doc found an old medical record when he moved, was about 15 4x6 index cards, and in about 5 min he had totally reviewed and understood this kids entire ped's history from top to bottom. WAs actually a great system, an put the relevant info right at the tips of his finger.... Recently I have really started to question the whole ROS sections - why do we need this? Don't we just need a good hx??? If someone has CP we want to know arm, neck, jaw, nausea and shoulder pain... why not just put in the HX and leave it at that.

 

 

PMH sections - why do we need to know about. A cold 5 years ago, or a hemorrhoid 6 years ago..... and why do we have to drill down the most minute detail for a Dx - how about just CHF (granted a little oversimplified but really....)

 

 

I think we need to all go back to a a great soap note format with computers that SUPPORT us instead of huge data dumps that just make the insurance companies happy to pick our. S@@@ apart and not pay use....

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