Data Quotes

“The gut is dead. Long live the data, turned out day and night by our myriad computers and smart devices. Not that we trust the data, as we trusted our guts.”

Virginia Hefffernan, “ Number Crunch.” New York Times Sunday Magazine, March 22, 2015

“Last year I saw an ad recruiting physicians to a Phoenix-area hospital. It promoted state of the art operating rooms, dazzling radiology equipment, a a lovely suburban location. But only one line was printed in red.: “No EHR.”

“The unanticipated consequences of health information technology are of particular interest today. In the past five years about $30 billion of federal incentive payments have succeeding in rapidly raising the adoption rate of electronic health records. The computerization of health care has been like a car whose spinning wheels have finally gained traction. We are so accustomed to standing still that we were totally unprepared for that first lurch forward.

Robert Wachter, MD, “Why Health Care Tech Is Still So Bad, ,” author, “The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Digital Age,” New York Times, March 22, 2015

Comment: Among practicing physicians, one of the most controversial issues is the utility, expense, and time-wasted of electronic health records (EHRs). Although some 80% of physicians now have EHR systems, the majority do not regard these systems as enhancing quality.