This letter does a wonderful job of articulating some of the advantages and irritations of a successful EHR implementation. Dr. Grobman also alludes to another interesting theme: frustration with the meaningful use incentive program. Again, he is not alone here. Some readers, like Dr. Michael Laidlaw of Rocklin, Calif., admit to rejecting the government incentive program altogether. Dr. Laidlaw writes:
"What made me abandon the incentive this year (I qualified for and was reimbursed for stage 1) is when I realized that I spent the first 2-5 minutes of each visit endlessly clicking a bunch of garbage to make all the green lights show up on the [meaningful use] meter. I said to myself: ‘I’m not wasting precious seconds of my life and my patients’ time to ensure some database gets filled with data. I didn’t go into medicine for this. It is not benefiting my patients or me. I hate it.’ I actually refused to take the $10K+ this year. I have even accepted that I would rather be penalized in the future. What is worth the most to me is AUTONOMY."
In reviewing all of the feedback we’ve received, this idea seems to come up again and again. Physicians are willing to accept the time-consuming idiosyncrasies of electronic health records but are offended by the idea of technologic or governmental intrusion into the physician-patient relationship. We will continue to explore this idea in the coming months as we share more reader comments and response to the column.
Dr. Skolnik is associate director of the family medicine residency program at Abington (Pa.) Memorial Hospital and professor of family and community medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia. He is editor in chief of Redi-Reference, a company that creates mobile apps. Dr. Notte practices family medicine and health care informatics at Abington Memorial. They are partners in EHR Practice Consultants. Contact them at info@ehrpc.com.