Why EHRs are broken

The main problem:

EHRs were designed to document the provision of health care as it was just delivered. Most EHRs arose from a programming background emphasizing billing and claims processing; software’s priority was data capture of past transactions. As a consequence, systems were not designed to provide sophisticated guidance to health care practitioners for “what comes next” in the care of a patient. With some important exceptions, the most important part of a patient’s medical care is the ongoing plan, and – unfortunately — EHRs still don’t effectively facilitate planning the future of a patient’s care.

and what we need to watch out for:

we have succumbed to an all-consuming demand for privacy of health care information without considering the implications.

We should make sure that effective treatment isn’t handcuffed by Kafkaesque laws.