Some answers about new site "EHRevent.org" for health IT and drug adverse event reporting - and a note on incendiaries

Some answers to the questions I raised here and here about a new site EHRevent.org, for reporting of healthcare IT and drug problems, can be found in a blog post at the site of Occam Practice Management at this link: http://www.occampm.com/blog/general/ehr-event-reporting/.

Its author, Michelle R. Wood, had noted this HC Renewal post. She researched some of the questions and wrote up her findings.

It is well worth a read.

I do have a small bone to pick with her post at Occam. She wrote:

"While HC Renewal occasionally borders on the incendiary side of things, Dr Silverstein posed some valid questions about a website that seem to have caught everyone by surprise..."

I maintain that the true incendiaries are fired by those we write about, those whose pronouncements and acts are "threats to health care's core values, especially those stemming from concentration and abuse of power."

Those 'incendiary' pronouncements and acts can indeed maim and kill (for example, as a relative of mine is now experiencing thanks to a commercial EMR 'mishap').

I may be more accurate to say we don't restrict ourselves to the confines of 'political correctness', that is, stunted discourse conventions that generally favor maintenance of the status quo.

As I wrote on that issue last year here in my series on mission hostile healthcare IT:

... Some have complained I am being "politically incorrect." At a time when our banks, major industries, investments, lifestyle and retirements have been seriously eroded by a combination of secrecy, incompetence, and criminal behavior on an unprecedented scale, I think such people need to get their priorities in order.

In his mantra "Critical thinking always, or your patient's dead", cardiothoracic surgeon Victor P. Satinsky, mentioned in earlier posts as my earliest medical mentor, did not include "but be polite about it" as part of the lesson.

On those pesky EMR curmudegons ... (click to enlarge)

-- SS

Addendum 11/17/10:

At the above Occam link Ms. Wood published my brief comment on this issue, and a thoughtful response. See the comment thread of her EHRevent essay.

-- SS