Digital Basics for Computer Novices

[Box 2.1

Digital Basics for Computer Novices

Today, there is a PC in every cubicle and a mobile device in every hand. You can download an “app” for any game, food diary, or pregnancy predictor (just to name a few) you desire. Information is at our fingertips, and patients expect their physician’s office to be just as connected. After all, healthcare is also one of the most high-tech businesses in America. Recent federal legislation has had many medical offices jump on the EHR bandwagon. This means that the office staff has had to learn the EHR system, and not everyone is ready for that change. It may take a generation, says John Hsu, an anesthesiologist who has written about the problem, before computer-phobic healthcare personnel are replaced by more tech-savvy workers. And therein lies a key factor—the human factor—in resistance to EHR adoption, says Hsu.

Invariably, some staff members will plead computer illiteracy and expect to be let off the hook when an EHR is introduced to the practice. A physician may want to retain his own paper files, or a longtime staff member might somehow expect to float outside the system—take vitals, say, and let someone else enter them into the EHR. But allowing parallel paper and electronic systems to exist beyond the transitional period is like having one person in a design studio creating illustrations on mat boards while the other six graphic artists use Photoshop.

Compromise may be a good thing, but it is not what is needed when a clinician or staffer tries to opt out of converting to the EHR. Strong leadership and a heavy dose of enthusiasm will generally carry the day. Owen O’Neill, a champion of his practice’s EHR, was both delighted and astonished to watch physicians in his group with only rudimentary computer skills become versatile EHR users. These computer converts tend to take advantage of more of the EHR’s features, O’Neill notes, perhaps because they participated in additional training. With that in mind, be sure everyone on your staff is familiar with the computing terms and concepts outlined in the Glossary for Computer Novices at the end of this chapter.2]

Question-Review the Glossary for Computer Novices, located at the end of this chapter. Which computer terms are new to you? How would the computer concepts apply to the medical setting? Other than EHRs, in what type of scenarios could you use the computer to enhance patient care?