GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT...THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN DATABASE MANAGEMENT TODAY AND ALWAYS...TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO REALLY F THINGS UP REQUIRES A COMPUTER AND BLIND FAITH IN THE SYSTEM...When it comes to electronic records, the most dangerous time for patients appears to be immediately after a facility installs the new technology...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-25/digital-health-records-risks-emerge-as-deaths-blamed-on-systems.html
When Scot Silverstein’s 84-year-old mother, Betty, starting mixing up her words, he worried she was having a stroke. So he rushed her to Abington Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania.
After she was admitted, Silverstein, who is a doctor, looked at his mother’s electronic health records, which are designed to make medical care safer by providing more information on patients than paper files do. He saw that Sotalol, which controls rapid heartbeats, was correctly listed as one of her medications.
Days later, when her heart condition flared up, he re-examined her records and was stunned to see that the drug was no longer listed, he said. His mom later suffered clotting, hemorrhaged and required emergency brain surgery. She died in 2011. Silverstein blames her death on problems with the hospital’s electronic medical records.
“I had the indignity of watching them put her in a body bag and put her in a hearse in my driveway,” said Silverstein, who has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit. “If paper records had been in place, unless someone had been using disappearing ink, this would not have happened.”
....Digital medical records, a cornerstone of U.S. President Barack Obama’s push to modernize the nation’s health-care system, are increasingly common at the doctor’s office.
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