Electronic Medical Records - AMA having trouble

AMA rips EMRs

 Statement by Kip Sullivan:

Like the news on the ACA, the news regarding electronic medical records keeps getting worse. Now the American Medical Association has, at long last, ripped into EMR theology.

The AMA’s chairman, Dr. Steven Stack, gave testimony on May 3 at a hearing on “meaningful use” of EMRs. Stack inexplicably genuflected to EMR theology, but then ripped into EMRs. I have pasted in excerpts below. Note phrases like “pure torment,” “time-wasting,” and “infuriatingly difficult,” etc.

My only question for Stack and the AMA is, Where the hell have you been for the last two decades? (see this wonderful comment at Health Care Renewal http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2013/05/ama-says-ehrs-create-appalling-catch-22.html) If the AMA had demanded evidence for EMRs before the computer industry and their allies unleashed their lobbying campaign to force taxpayers to finance EMRs and doctors to use them, we might not be in this awful fix today.

The EMR project is US faith-based health policy at its worst – say any damn thing you want, with or without evidence, especially if it makes some big insurance companies or computer corporations rich, pass it into law, and then either ignore the outcome or shoot the messenger.

Kip