Carl Spitzer

See the following -

Slow Death by EMR or: How I Learned to Stop Clicking and Love Google Glass

Here's a dirty little secret that I'll share with you: the clinical usability of current-generation electronic medical record (EMR) systems is nothing short of atrocious. If the Geneva Convention's proscription against torture extended to healthcare information technology (HIT), most vendors would be out of business and behind bars. But you probably already knew that: a November 2013 article in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine (AJEM) found that community emergency physicians spend 44 percent of their time interacting with EMRs and click up to 4,000 times in a 10-hour shift.

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Three Areas Where Health Information Technology Needs to Get its House in Order

Health reform is taking off, thanks to pressure from insurers, the promise with which innovative technologies tease us for low-cost treatments, and regulatory mandates dating back to the HITECH act of 2009. Recent hopeful signs for wider adoption of health technologies include FDA forebearance from regulating consumer health apps, calls for more support for telemedicine, and new health announcements from tech giants such as Apple and Google. While technologists push forward in all these areas, we need to keep in mind that several big unsolved problems remain. Let's not get lost in the details--these major issues have to be tackled head on. Read More »