Do Electronic Health Records Deserve to Get a Bad Rap?

by Richard Quinn •

Take “digital natives,” for example. Those are people who have grown up on technology that older physicians came to later in life. Or, “low-touch users” and “super-users,” physicians who are on either end of the spectrum depending on often they integrate technology into their daily flow.

“If you have a low-touch doctor, you can imagine that they aren’t going to be so inclined to interact with a computer on a decision if they’re just kind of sour on the whole concept,” Dr. Ator said. “That’s why it’s very complex. Human factors, machine interactions. You have to deal with people differently …. We must deal with the adoption of technology differently, depending on where people come from.”

Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.

Not Enough Chief Medical Informatics Officers

Otolaryngologist Gregory Ator, MD, chief medical informatics officer (CMIO) for the University of Kansas Health System, believes more institutions would be helped by having CMIOs help lead the way through the next generation of systems improvement.

“People like me are fairly hard to find,” he said. “Nationwide, we tend to be involved with big institutions. And who can afford us? We have 1,900 providers at our place, so 300-plus people in the (information technology group); that’s a lot different than the one- or two-person group that’s trying to do EMR.”

Some statistics on the prevalence of CMIOs:

  • 73% are in their first CMIO position, a nod to the newness of the designation;
  • 75% still practice medicine as the demands on their time remain split;
  • 38% report to chief medical officers, with just 4% reporting straight to a CEO; and
  • The report listed as a top priority “EMR: new installs/reinstalls, usability, optimization, standardization, personalization.”

Source: 2018 AMDIS-Gartner 14th Annual CMIO Survey