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Forbes: Why Is Your Doctor Typing?

"..... In the last year or two, there’s been a shift. Much of my time with doctors has been spent watching them type. In one case, the doctor tapped away on his laptop, occasionally looking up to ask questions before returning to the main focus of his attention: his computer. In another case, the doctor intermittently tapped on an iPad while we spoke. In a third instance, the doctor had a conversation with me and then apologized that he would be spending the next half of our session typing up the results of our conversation. All this typing was required, he said, if he was ever going to be reimbursed for his services. It was getting in the way of being a doctor.

Surely, I said, computerized medical records generate benefits. They are easily retrievable. They can be transferred from one practice to another and accessible to the many different service providers—hospitals, laboratories, specialists, radiology and so on—that might be involved in any one patient.

“In theory, perhaps,” he replied. “But in practice, it’s a horrible and costly bureaucracy that is being imposed on doctors. I spend less time with patients, and more time filling out multiple boxes on forms that don’t fit the way I work. Often I am filling out the same information over and over again. A lot of it is checking boxes, rather than understanding what this patient really needs..........”

Why Is Your Doctor Typing? Electronic Medical Records Run Amok - Forbes