There has been lots of shade thrown on electronic health records of late, from criticism of vendors to pushback against Meaningful Use. Still, the Obama administration remains committed to EHRs, and a top official is telling physicians not to fear for their jobs.
“It’s not about replacing people,” D.J. Patil, the White House’s chief data scientist, said at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s Consumer Health IT Summit this week, according to FedScoop. “It’s augmenting. You should only be focused on how you make people smarter, faster, and more effective. How do you do that? You focus on building a super power.”
In that sense, EHRs are not where they need to be yet. To Patil, those without well-designed health IT systems might as well be Superman in the face of Kryptonite.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“Ever lose your phone? What’s that feeling like?” Patil asked. “That feeling is what happens to a super hero when they lose their super power. That’s what happens. It’s Kryptonite. All data products, you must feel crippled [without them] if you have built the product the right way,” he reportedly said.
“We have to focus on building that super power.”
D.J. Patil
Photo: Steve Jennings/Getty Images Entertainment
