EHR Is Coming to a Courtroom Near You
And Justice IT Is Not Ready

You may not be able to get your own medical records in a machine-readable form, and your physician may still be relying on paper, but despite that, electronic health records may be heading to a courtroom near you. Trial lawyer Gerry Oginski writes that:

. . . A West Health Institute survey asserts that the lack of EHR interoperability and medical device connectivity has been cited previously as a key reason for medical errors. About one out of two nurses polled in the survey stated that they noticed a medical error due to poor integration of EHR technology or medical device within a hospital or practice.

While Oginski correctly observes that interoperability can help reduce misuse of EHR technology, it must also be pointed out that incorrect system-to-system integration and interpretation could become causes for malpractice in health care settings.

Union of the Underachievers

The impossible-to-overlook irony in all this is that automation in the justice system is even further behind than in the health care system.