''Hunt the Chart'' Can Hurt Doctors and Patients Alike.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers/High-Tech Writers

ROHNERT PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 2004

As the amount of information physicians collect on their patients increases exponentially, and the number of other people who need to have access to it grows in step, they come up against a problem: most of the data is processed in the same way that it was fifty years ago.

"With every increase in the flow of information, record keeping takes longer, is more frustrating and results in more errors," says Susan Tait, president of Medical Management Outsources of Fort Collins, Colo.

As a consultant, patients' notes, in particular, worry her. Time and again, she says, she comes across situations where the doctor, nurse, billing and scheduling staff all want a chart at the same time. "That means it is time consuming to find the chart and keep the medical record updated and accurate. A lot depends on that flimsy record being there and being right," she points out. "Yet there is often a great deal of uncertainty about whether services have been given, properly charged for and adequately documented."

To the physicians who ask for her advice about the future of record keeping, Tait says one thing: computerize. "It will save you time, money and effort and it will make you a more efficient and productive physician."

The most obvious of these is money, Tait contends. ChartWare, the system she recommends, estimates that the installation typically pays for itself in less than six months.

Less tangible is her claim that computerized note-taking makes for better doctoring but to her it's obvious. "The number of mistakes made that result from bad handwriting, outdated files or adverse drug interactions, because of poor charting, is reduced dramatically when the information can be retrieved at any time in an orderly and legible form."

Tait, who has installed new systems in a wide range of family practices and specialties, senses a quickening of interest as physicians, like the rest of the population, use computers routinely at home to buy products, check the weather and e-mail friends. "Many younger doctors and almost all new practices accept electronic record keeping as the only way to go," she says. "It doesn't make sense to them not to have all the information in front of them at a glance."

But even doctors who have been in practice for twenty years are seeing that, if for no other reason than to protect themselves against lawsuits with improved record keeping, they must make changes. "One of our clients couldn't even use a mouse when we first met her," Tait recalls. "Now, like many others, she's delighted to find that, even when she's on call at home, she can bring up a patient's entire record."