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medpundit |
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Thursday, March 28, 2002The article points out that the error rates cited by the Institute’s study last year were faulty, but it also rightly points out that the study still managed to grab headlines and attention on the basis of its dramatic claims. Of course, reducing errors is always a worthy goal, but it becomes problematic when outside organizations try to enforce their own special solutions, especially when they don’t have to put up the money for those solutions. In this case, the organization of employers and insurers wants hospitals to invest a lot of money on computer systems to reduce errors; but do these systems reduce errors? What if the wrong dose is accidently typed into a computer? Who’s going to catch that? With a written order at least it’s read by several people before being implemented, increasing the chance than an error will be caught. I worry that implementing unproven large computer systems will push hospitals over the financial edge. As the story points out: “Only about one-third of hospitals are in a position to make the investments necessary to buy CPOE systems, which cost between about $2.5 million and $10 million, Wade said. (About one-third of hospitals break even and one-third lose money, he added.) Many have other high priorities intimately related to quality and safety, such as hiring more nurses and replacing aging facilities.” I’d much rather have more nurses than more computers on the floors. A computer isn’t going to check on my patient’s well-being throughout the day and alert me to problems. posted by Sydney on 3/28/2002 07:55:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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