Archive for October, 2011

Cognitive Friction

The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis says that our language shapes how we think. It’s been moderately debunked in recent decades, but it’s likely true, at least in small part. And one of those small parts is when someone coins a new word that encapsulates a new idea. There has been a debate within philosophy since Plato’s time […]

Scribes

“This job would be great if I didn’t have to chart.” Physicians say this all the time. One way to not have to chart (much) is to work with a Federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) team. Although the National Disaster Medical System now has an electronic medical record (EMR) system, it used to just […]

“Wrong Patient”

Updates, December 2014, October 2016: short addenda at end. Speaking of “Bad Design Killing” a big part of the discussion at the ACEP Informatics Section meeting in San Francisco this month was about one particular usability problem with CPOE: entering orders on the wrong patient. I’ve done this myself – as far as I know […]

RHIO

At a recent meeting, one of my partners noted how good for patients and emergency physicians it would be if we could access medical records from the rival hospital system in town. It certainly would, but given the controversies between the big players (one giant system that includes hospitals, physicians and a major regional medical […]