This is story that aired on CBS Sunday Morning on Sept 13, 2009.
The story focuses on the medical industry’s adoption of electronic medical records, EMR, into medical facilities. Most hospitals and doctors still use paper to track patient information, which easily creates errors that could jeopardize a patient’s health. Dennis Quad’s two new babies were giving the wrong dosage of a medicine at 12 days old. Mr Quad points out that the use of EMR could have prevented the mistake
The Obama Administration’s passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or what is referred to as the Stimulus Plan, has billions of dollars allocated as reimbursements to doctors for implementing and using electronic medical records. Doctors will start to receive payments in 2011 after they show that and EMR system is in place and is being used.
Some of the points made in this story:
• 100,000 patients die every year in hospitals due to errors.
• 83% of doctors store medical records on paper.
• Medical barcodes help reduce errors
• EMR will save time, save errors, and save lives
• Implementation of EMR will benefit patients.
