The real argument against electronic health records
Doctors lie. Then they lie about it.
That's the conclusion you can draw from Reuters' report that half of all U.S. doctors fail to report incompetence. (Picture of Evil Dr. Zork from Legaljuice.)
Now that I've gotten your attention (and perhaps made you angry) let me start over again.
Doctors are human. And it's hard to admit it.
Everyone makes mistakes. Even doctors. Not just diagnostic mistakes, but mistakes in terms of ordering unnecessary tests, asking about or identifying symptoms, even charting. Human mistakes.
When these mistakes are hidden in paper records, in your own handwriting, they do no harm. Once they're out on the Internet they're fair game. And so is every other mistake made by every other physician you work with.
In a world where lawyers are ready to pounce and seize your livelihood for any mistake, that's more than frightening. It's paralyzing.
No wonder doctors don't report mistakes by their colleagues. You don't want to bring down this legal wrath of God on people, and you don't want other people bringing it down on you for the crime of being human.
What's needed is an attitude adjustment. Before we make everyone's records, and the mistakes in those records, electronic.
We need to understand the difference between honest, human mistakes and willful misconduct. Stop treating the former as the latter.
My own modest proposal is to make punitive damages uninsurable. Such damages should only be awarded when there is egregious, deliberate, willful misconduct, but today they're awarded routinely.
They need to stop being routine. And most mistakes need to be seen for what they are, human error. To err is human.
Every doctor, from the best to the worst, is human.