To defend against malpractice suits, one speaker at the recent MGMA-ACMPE annual conference in San Antonio recommended, practices must maintain constant vigilance of their health information technology systems. Another speaker said lawsuits can be avoided by showing patients courtesy and respect.
They are probably both right, though the second speaker's message was more inspiring.
Ronald Sterling, an electronic health-record consultant based in Silver Spring, Md., gave a presentation titled "Malpractice Discovery in the Age of EHR" and warned his audience that he was about to address a "depressing" subject.
Sterling said the good news was that mitigation efforts in the area of malpractice discovery could best be described as "good housekeeping," and he warned against "ceding clinical control to the techno geeks."
Sterling sprinkled his talk with horror stories such as the pediatric practice whose patient immunization records were not transferred into the EHR, and his main message seemed to be: Test systems; verify data; train staff; and document what you did.
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Nobel prizes probably won't be handed out, but peace has been declared between the American College of Chest Physicians and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and patients might be declared the conflict's winners.
"The guideline wars are over," trumpets the headline of an editorial written by Dr. Jay Lieberman, chairman of the University of Connecticut orthopedic surgery department and appearing in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Can it be true?
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