You Have Been Hacked!

Ed Bujold

doi:10.1370/afm.2906

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RE: You Have Been Hacked!
Robert Watkins

Published on: 01 February 2023
RE: You Have Been Hacked
Edward J Bujold

Published on: 26 January 2023
RE: being hacked
JEAN M Antonucci

Published on: 26 January 2023
RE: You Have Been Hacked!
Robert Watkins

Published on: 26 January 2023

Published on: (1 February 2023)
Page navigation anchor for RE: You Have Been Hacked!
RE: You Have Been Hacked!
Robert Watkins, Family physician, Private practice
Thank you for the reply, Dr. Bujold.

I'm going to respectfully disagree, based on personal experience, with your statement that "Economically, it just isn't practical to practice without a high functioning EHR."

We're a two-doc practice, thirty years using paper, out of the office at 5 every day, income above the average for family medicine - and no burnout.

The AAFP, payers, and tech companies are pushing the lie that there's only one way to practice medicine in this day and age. That's a grave disservice to both physicians and patients.

Competing Interests: None declared.
Published on: (26 January 2023)
Page navigation anchor for RE: You Have Been Hacked
RE: You Have Been Hacked
Edward J Bujold, physician, GFFMC
Robert Watkins,

I have no interest in going back to paper charts but I have to admit for the period of time we were back to paper charts I really enjoyed not worrying about filling gaps in care, proper coding for our ACO and many other things. It was nice to just taking care of patients again like in the "good old days". Economically, it just isn't practical to practice without a high functioning EHR

Ed

Competing Interests: None declared.
Published on: (26 January 2023)
Page navigation anchor for RE: being hacked
RE: being hacked
JEAN M Antonucci, Physician, northern lights
Kudos to Dr. Bujold. Not because of surviving being hacked, but because of what we see when we read between the lines. It is well known that small and private practices provide very good work, superb access, and superior continuity. Among other things in this article about being hacked, here’s a physician who has been at this for his entire career; two providers are supporting four other staff members - this is not easy; he describes a plethora of interfaces with practice management, data reports, the cloud, ACO’s, EMR‘s, etc.. Only the sturdy can do this. I managed it for 16 years. Hospital policies and regulations from all sides are forcing doctors to employment, which has been a disaster for primary care. I urge our professional organizations to take a good hard look at providing what I would even call a "kit" to open and run practices/support to set up and run a practice, needs to be far better than minimal checklist and expensive consultants that we have now. Primary care is dying in this country and is assaulted from all sides. Kudos to Dr B!

Competing Interests: None declared.
Published on: (26 January 2023)
Page navigation anchor for RE: You Have Been Hacked!
RE: You Have Been Hacked!
Robert Watkins, Family physician, Private practice
Thank you for a fascinating article.

"Ironically, during this time frame I spent more time with patients, less time documenting medical records, and on average, left the office 1 hour earlier"

Actually, there's nothing at all ironic about your experience - it's quite logical and predictable if one objectively looks at the burdens imposed by paper chart and those imposed by EMRs.

Add to that the possibility that "an adverse cyber attack may occur affecting someone’s life and potentially result in a death," and I have to ask if you gave any serious consideration to staying with paper?

It's hard to come up with benefits that truly outweigh the problems you so accurately describe.

Competing Interests: None declared.