Your HIT parade - Problem lists!

As some know, I think our national electronic health record (EHR) policy is woefully misguided - providers/organizations are being pushed hard to buy an EHR, any EHR (I think the official title of this strategy is, "Let 1,000 EHRs fester"), with the costs of acquisition and barriers to exit so high that most purchasers get locked into whatever they buy, even after discovering it is a POS and most of what they were promised was vaporware.  These complex systems are devoted to charge capture/justification, not patient care, and are chief suspects in increases in Medicare coding intensity/costs unrelated to any actual changes in care. (Here's the NY Times article.)  Well, duh!  They are NOT, in general, focused on helping clinicians actually provide better care (except for the few that were actually developed by clinicians to help them practice).  However, I can think of few ways to make this clearer than the email I received today:

Health Resources and Services Administration

Health Information Technology and Quality Improvement Webinar

Friday, May 17, 2:00 PM ET

“Using an Electronic Health Record to Create Patient Problem Lists”

This webinar will focus on how safety net primary care providers can meaningfully use electronic health records (EHR) to create and maintain patient problem lists.  Created by EHRs, patient problem lists are a core requirement of Meaningful Use. This function serves as a powerful tool for maintaining a patient’s medical history while also helping to engage patients to better track and manage their health care.  

Presenters will demonstrate how patient problem lists are created and maintained by EHRs, and share their strategies on how providers can use them for quality improvement and patient engagement.  Lastly, staff from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will discuss the importance of patient problem lists in achieving Stage 1 and 2 of Meaningful Use.

Register here: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/s/registrations/new?cid=3g2cm558x3gp.

Previous HRSA Health IT and Quality Webinars can be accessed at the HRSA Health IT and Quality Webinar website: http://www.hrsa.gov/healthit/toolbox/webinars/.

Questions for presenters are welcome prior to the event and may be emailed to healthit@hrsa.gov.

If a webinar is needed to help people learn about creating problem lists in their EHRs and discuss how they can be useful in patient care, we are in seriously deep trouble.  After being sure you are looking at the right chart, the problem list is typically the first thing you look at.  How can it be possible that we are pushing people to buy and use such useless crap where conducting such a webinar does not seem utterly nonsensical?  And that people are paying many thousands, and often millions, of dollars for these pieces of crap.

Don't get me wrong - as a geek, I think the EHR has huge potential for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of health care.  I just think we are squandering nearly all of that potential with our current, misguided policies and driving costs up substantially with little or no payoff.  Except to the EHR companies, who are making billions.  "Free market" Republicans should be up in arms over this forced subsidy - except, of course, they really care about helping businesses make money, not free markets, competition, efficiency, or saving taxpayer money.

Stay tuned - I hear that next year, HRSA and ONCHIT are planning on cosponsoring an advanced-level webinar, "Creating a Progress Note Using an Electronic Health Record."