{"id":3607,"date":"2009-12-01T20:22:19","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T20:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3607"},"modified":"2009-12-01T20:22:19","modified_gmt":"2009-12-01T20:22:19","slug":"throwing_comput","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3607","title":{"rendered":"Throwing Computers At Healthcare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/archives\/2009\/12\/throwing_comput.php\">Nicholas Carr<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Computerworld <a href=\"http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/s\/article\/print\/9141428\/Harvard_study_Computers_don_t_save_hospitals_money?taxonomyName=Hardware&amp;taxonomyId=12\">reports<\/a> on an extensive new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amjmed.com\/webfiles\/images\/journals\/ajm\/AJM10662S200.pdf\">Harvard Medical School study<\/a>, appearing in the American Journal of Medicine, that paints a stark and troubling picture of the essential worthlessness of many of the computer systems that hospitals have invested in over the last few years. The researchers, led by Harvard&#8217;s David Himmelstein, begin their report by sketching out the hype that now surrounds health care automation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Enthusiasm for health information technology spans the political spectrum, from Barack Obama to Newt Gingrich. Congress is pouring $19 billion into it. Health reformers of many stripes see computerization as a painless solution to the most vexing health policy problems, allowing simultaneous quality improvement and cost reduction &#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><Br><br \/>\nIn 2005, one team of analysts projected annual savings of $77.8 billion, whereas another foresaw more than $81 billion in savings plus substantial health gains from the nationwide adoption of optimal computerization. Today, the federal government\u2019s health information technology website states (without reference) that \u201cBroad use of health IT will: improve health care quality; prevent medical errors; reduce health care costs; increase administrative efficiencies; decrease paperwork; and expand access to affordable care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/archives\/2009\/12\/throwing_comput.php\">Nicholas Carr<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Computerworld <a href=\"http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/s\/article\/print\/9141428\/Harvard_study_Computers_don_t_save_hospitals_money?taxonomyName=Hardware&amp;taxonomyId=12\">reports<\/a> on an extensive new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amjmed.com\/webfiles\/images\/journals\/ajm\/AJM10662S200.pdf\">Harvard Medical School study<\/a>, appearing in the American Journal of Medicine, that paints a stark and troubling picture of the essential worthlessness of many of the computer systems that hospitals have invested in over the last few years. The researchers, led by Harvard&#8217;s David Himmelstein, begin their report by sketching out the hype that now surrounds health care automation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Enthusiasm for health information technology spans the political spectrum, from Barack Obama to Newt Gingrich. Congress is pouring $19 billion into it. Health reformers of many stripes see computerization as a painless solution to the most vexing health policy problems, allowing simultaneous quality improvement and cost reduction &#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><Br><br \/>\nIn 2005, one team of analysts projected annual savings of $77.8 billion, whereas another foresaw more than $81 billion in savings plus substantial health gains from the nationwide adoption of optimal computerization. Today, the federal government\u2019s health information technology website states (without reference) that \u201cBroad use of health IT will: improve health care quality; prevent medical errors; reduce health care costs; increase administrative efficiencies; decrease paperwork; and expand access to affordable care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,18,9,17,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}