Quote:
Originally Posted by TheVillageChicken
My urologist at Duke University Medical Center told me that tethering to the computer is due to requirements imposed by the Affordable Health Care Act. During my last visit, he sat there typing and three times dropped his chin to his chest, groaned, and sighed "Obama Care."
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The only problem with this is that prior to ObamaCare kicking in, I saw the same problem in hospitals. Really what changed is that docs now have to document what is going on (in part to make insurance happy and their malpractice insurance even happier) - before they could simply note something no one else could read and move on.
Also keep in mind that docs are like the population in general. Some took to computers years ago and some fought against it. The ones that fought it are having trouble adapting to electronic medical records.
In the late 60s, there was a movement from clinical medicine to lab medicine. Doctors started diagnosing not with their observations, but based on lab results. Increasingly, they ordered batteries and batteries of tests before they even saw a patient. I fired my doctor in 2005 because she would never look up from my chart and actually look at me. And in 10 visits, she *never* actually touched me. (which is pretty hard to manage while doing a physical exam!)
Todays doctors are trained to wheel their computer stands around. They can't actually go into the patients room anymore (not enough room for 10 people and their computers), so they stand out in the hall, stare at the screens and discuss the patient. The residents and students don't examine patients - they look at the stats and test results on their screens. Maybe, if you are lucky, one will actually go in and speak to the patient,
Yeah, primary medicine in the US sucks. Complain all you want about "socialized medicine", but primary care under British National Health is much better than here and doctors often do make house calls if the patient is too ill to come to the office. And the district nurse will visit seriously ill folks daily if need. (They have decided to invest the money in primary care. Specialty care, well, sucks really badly)
At least PAs and ARNPs are likely to actually talk to you and examine you.