I recently wrote about the concern of clinicians facing an EMR implementation of losing their professional autonomy. This concern came to mind as I read an article entitled “Off the Record -  Avoiding the Pitfalls of Going Electronic” co-authored by Drs. Pamela Hartzband and Jerome Groopman.  In the article, the authors rightly worry that the capacity to manipulate the EMR make it far too easy for trainees to avoid taking their own histories and come to their own conclusions about what is wrong with the patient. (This slippery slope, of course, applies to physicians in independent practice as well.) For me the exploitation of these capacities also speaks of the temptation for professionals to take shortcuts and thus to collude with the economic pressures of the current healthcare environment and abdicate their professional obligations to their patients.

The authors cite the glut of raw data not digested into relevant information; the practice of clinicians copy and pasting (essentially plagiarizing) from others and from their own previous content. They cite their experience that templates invite voluminous, unfocused notes, which may be efficient but not conducive for creative clinical thinking. As they note, writing forces us to think and formulate our ideas.

They observe that EMR’s can become a vehicle for perpetuating erroneous information that gains momentum when passed on electronically. In my 25 years practicing psychiatry, I often saw the written chart do the same disservice as clinicians uncritically accepted previous diagnostic formulations. Though the accessibility and interoperability will amplify this woeful practice.

They believe that the most disturbing effect of the technology is that it diverts attention from the patient during the 15 minute clinic visit. Surely the EMR is not the primary culprit here. Consider the time constraint itself plus the payor’s documentation requirements and possibly an inadequately trained and inexperienced user.

My overall and, admittedly somewhat defensive, response is that an EMR is neither an ethics auditor nor a supervisor. Nor can the technology be blamed for inadequate content design. I too am ardently concerned with the trends towards protocol driven, time-compressed, technology focused healthcare. However, I view the poor use and outright misuse of the EMR more as an enabling result than a cause.

In conclusion Drs. Hartzband and Groopman write “Practicing ‘thinking’ medicine takes time and electronic records will not change that. We need to make this technology work for us rather than allowing ourselves to work for it.”  Yes, indeed.