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Reflections on electronic medical records: when doctors will use them and when they will not
Howard L Bleich1, Warner V Slack
1Harvard Medical School, Division of Clinical Informatics, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA. hbleich@bidmc.harvard.edu
Purpose:
Our purpose is to counter the common wisdom that doctors are refractory to change and therefore responsible for the limited use of electronic medical records.
Methods:
We draw on experience with electronic medical records in two Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals dating back to the early 1980s.
Results:
Doctors quickly become ardent users of electronic medical records if the software is sufficiently helpful in the care of their patients.
Conclusions:
The key to enthusiastic acceptance of electronic medical records is computing that is easy to use and helpful to doctors, nurses, and other clinicians in the care of their patients.
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