Blog Awards

Polls Are Open in The 2010 Medical Weblog Awards Sponsored by Epocrates and Lenovo

I was quite happy to see my blog nominated again this year in the patient blog category, and surprised at how disappointed I was not to be named a finalist.

Categories are:

• Best Medical Weblog
• Best New (established in 2010) Medical Weblog
• Best Literary Medical Weblog
• Best Clinical Sciences Weblog
• Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog
• Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog
• Best Patient’s Blog

***

Best Medical Weblog

• Celebrity Diagnosis
• Clinical Cases and Images:CasesBlog
• EMCrit blog
• The Sterile Eye
• White Coat Underground 

Please vote here…

Best New (established in 2010) Medical Weblog

• Celebrity Diagnosis Professional Edition
• The Future Well
• Scepticemia
• Wellness Rounds
• ZDoggMD

Please vote here…

Best Literary Medical Weblog

• other things amanzi
• The Quack Doctor
• Reflections of a Grady Doctor
• StorytellERdoc
• White Coat Underground

Please vote here…

Best Clinical Sciences Weblog

• Academic Life in Emergency Medicine
• GeriPal
• EMCrit blog
• Renal Fellow Network
• Resus M.E!

Please vote here…

Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog

• 33 charts
• Covert Rationing Blog
• EverythingHealth
• The Health Care Blog

Please vote here…

Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog

• Dalai’s PACS Blog
• HIStalk
• iMedicalApps
• NanoTechGalaxy
• ScienceRoll

Please vote here…

Best Patient’s Blog

• Brass and Ivory **
• Dean’s Stroke Musings
• Diabetes Mine
• Dispatch From Second Base
• Wheelchair Kamikaze

Please vote here…

Check out the nominees and go vote.

First EMR

Saying “I hate EMRs” is like saying, “I hate seafood.”  There are just too many kinds to make sweeping generalizations.

I remember when I first heard the idea of using computers in a medical office.  Back in the late 70′s we had a VIC-20 at home*, and at school we had a TRS 80.  Personal computers were starting to be affordable by individuals (instead of those building-size contraptions only available to universities or large corporations).  The doctors for whom my mom worked were excited about the possibility of typing a patient’s symptoms into the computer and having a differential diagnosis print out.  Others scoffed at the notion, but nonetheless, people were starting to think that computers might be able to help in a medical setting.

Fast forward about twenty-five years.  The first time I saw a doctor using a computer for patient records was a good experience.  Instead of coming into the exam room with a paper chart, the Dr. Foote walked in with a laptop computer.  He loved his “new toy” as he called it.  The appointment went about the way a typical doctor’s appointment would go, but at the end, instead of writing notes in a paper chart, the doctor typed a few things into his computer.  On our way out, the receptionist handed us a typed prescription.  A fan of legibility, I thought that prescriptions printed from the computer were a fabulous idea.

Dr. Foote no longer carries a laptop into exam rooms.  He obviously reviews the patients’ charts before entering the exam rooms empty-handed.  He does whatever is needed, then returns to his desk to do his charting (computerized) before going on to the next patient.

From this patient’s perspective, it’s a process that works well.  It’s interesting that he does the same thing my family physicians does while using paper charts.

• they review past history before coming into the room
• they knows why I’m there
• they focus on talking to me, not the chart (whether computer or paper)

I wish my other doctors who use EMRs did it as efficiently.

In the future, I’ll be writing about some of my other exposures to computerized medical records.
Have you had positive experiences with EMR?

 

__________________
*upgraded to a Commodore 64 when I was in high school