Medicine: The Crossroads

Bill Frist isn't all bad. In this New England Journal of Medicine editorial, he hits the nail on the head about some of the major current failings of the health care system. Reflecting a thought I have had since my Econ/Premed days, the current healthcare system is enormously IT-(information technology)-ignorant.

Embracing IT would allow healthcare to do something every other major industry has done since the 1980s! Even though people hate Wal-mart, the sense of paranoia its employees wake up with in the morning, thinking they will be dethroned, is exactly what pushes them to be one of the most efficient companies in the world. But back to the point. Increasing efficiency with IT will at the least save healthcare from its downward spiral into the shackles of paperwork and bureaucracy.

But the most important point has to do with the new 80-hour work week. The reduced hours were implemented in order to reduce mistakes from trainees, and that has been the focus of most media reports concerning the new limit. However, no one gets to read about the loss in "continuity of patient care." The issue of continuity is almost as critical as the diagnosis itself, and one of the major problems of the 80-hr work week is that information is often times not correctly passed on from one on-call team to the next, adversely affecting patient care. Doctor-types being computer-dumb is no longer an excuse. Information technology is an adjunct to patient care and we need to treat it like one.