In the previous post in this series, I discussed the obstacles to implementing electronic health data systems. Because of these obstacles, many providers are resistant to replacing their paper-based “databases” with true EHR systems. But assuming the best case scenarios, that all healthcare providers and vendors convert from paper (or quasi-paper) to digital, that still doesn’t fully solve the problem…
In the first installment of this discussion, I talked about the challenges facing database professionals and others with respect to healthcare data integration. In this post I’ll talk about the first part of the problem: a lack of adoption of the required technologies and/or methodologies. I’ll also describe when an electronic health record really isn’t. We’ve all seen it; it…
Last week, I had lunch with an old friend who is, by his own definition, technologically ignorant. While we caught up, he asked me to explain in terms he could understand what I do for a living. I went through one of my spiels (the one usually reserved for relatives who only know that I work “with computers”), delivering a…