Quote:
Originally Posted by buggyone
Yes, it is terrible to see all those primary care physicians lined up at the Goodwill store, the food pantries, and the soup kitchens.  |
You purposely miss the point in order to
ridicule.
The insurance, Medicare and Medicaid paperwork, documenting to CYA in case of malpractice lawsuits, and now electronic medical records are making the drs. spend their time on everything
but patient care. This is part of the problem at TVRH and every E.R.:
"Robert G. Hill Jr, MD, from St. Luke's University Health Network, Allentown, Pennsylvania and colleagues analyzed time use in their emergency department and found that
physicians spent 43% of their time, on average, performing data entry, or roughly twice as much as that spent on direct patient care. Their study was published online September 23 in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.
During a busy 10-hour shift, their calculations suggested that a physician might perform a finger-numbing 4000 mouse clicks entering data.
"Emergency department physicians spend significantly more time entering data into electronic medical records than on any other activity, including direct patient care," the investigators note. "Factors such as operating system speed, server/mainframe responsiveness, typing skills, user-friendliness of system, interruptions, extent of training, opportunity to delegate tasks, and various environmental attributes can influence data entry time. Efficient use of the EMR system will increase physician productivity and hospital revenue," they maintain.
Although EMRs are now the federally mandated standard for medical records, they are still controversial, with hefty up-front costs and uncertain benefits, according to the investigators......"
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/811841