HIT Myths Debunked!

A few weeks ago I was thinking about all of the myths that swirl around in healthcare IT circles. Many of these myths are heavily ingrained in HIT beliefs, and some are merely misunderstandings. For example, in IT there is a belief that keeping the server room as cool as possible is best for the hardware, yet a study published by Google showed that hard drive failures do not appear to correlate to temperature at all. I keep my personal server room at 75 or so. No hard drive failures yet!

We decided that a blog series on healthcare myths would be fun. Since I started it, here are the HIT myths that I am tired of debunking.

"A single EHR will solve all of our problems!"

Phooey! This is an age-old argument that has gone on for years. Deeper still, is the general IT argument that best of breed solutions are not as cost effective as single-vendor. IT leaders in healthcare often forget that there are more providers than hospitals and clinics. The documentation and ordering needs of providers like behavioral health, home care, hospice, long-term care, and physical therapy. These other providers will likely always be on separate systems, and we will need to communicate with them electronically. Related to this, let's debunk the number-one myth I hear about interoperability!

“We think Direct is a short-term strategy, and we prefer to wait for statewide HIE.”

Balderdash! When folks talk about where we need to be in HIT they usually tell the story of query-based exchange. We talk about getting injured in a far-away state, going to an ER, and all of our medical information from other facilities is magically downloaded into the EHR there. Life is good!

That is a great scenario, and it will happen someday. However, we can use Direct right now to make a difference in patient care! Even providers who do not have an EHR can benefit from Direct by having secure communication with their referring providers. We should be getting comfortable using Direct and eliminating that stupid fax machine! Further, Direct will likely be around forever, it is not a short-term solution! Did we get rid of our phones when email became popular? 

“Patients in our community are too old to access their electronic patient data!”

Flapdoodle! I used to hear this more often than I do now, probably because we are seeing it isn't necessarily true. We have seen many studies that show this not to be the case too. Older patients have more need for medical care and can be very engaged in the healthcare. Also, many older folks use technology to keep up with their family (Skype, Facebook) and have an iPad or smart phone. Further, when we engage the patient's family and caregiver we can get them to access the patient portal nearly every time.

So, since this is a first-in-a-series kind of blog, help me out! What other myths do you hear? What needs to be debunked out there? What other synonyms for "nonsense" do you know?