> notably healthcare researchers use this data to improve patient care, develop new medicines, and to precisely identify which medicines are likely to help on a particular patient (and which medicines may even harm them!)
The majority of the notes being written by doctors now is boilerplate. A lot of it is copy-pasted. It's written because of insurance companies (which have incentive to deny claims), because of liability (which gives incentive to leave a lot of notes behind to make it looks like you thought about everything under the sun even if it wasn't applicable), and because of well-meaning but ultimately overly broad laws adding additional requirements even when they don't quite make sense.
I'm sure there is a treasure-trove of valuable data in there, especially compared to when it was all hidden away on physical paper. But you could probably reduce the paperwork that doctors do these days by a factor of 4 and not loose anything of value.
> But you could probably reduce the paperwork that doctors do these days by a factor of 4 and not loose anything of value.
Maybe, but this sounds like some vague hunch based on ???. I very highly doubt the healthcare industry would tolerate doctors wasting ~37.5% of their time (75% of paperwork time is wasteful * 50% of doctors' time spent on paperwork = minimum 37.5% of doctors time wasted). Doctors are expensive, so recouping anywhere near 40% of their time would be a priority.
It seems more likely that the paperwork is actually pretty useful (but the utility is not obvious to the lay observer), or at least useful enough that the wasted time isn't significant to the healthcare industry (which is already struggling with margins and personnel).
Based on working in the industry, and hearing from healthcare practitioners not quite first-hand, but second-hand.
You mention profit efficiency, but all three of my points make sense even in light of that: (i) insurance is literally the way doctors get paid; (ii) lawsuits are hella expensive, and (iii) regardless of profit incentives you can't not follow the law.
The software that doctors use is terrible. It's a perfect combination of extreme complexity, domination by just a couple companies (Epic and Cerner), legacy software (some still written in mumps, I hear!), and tons and tons of regulation.
>I very highly doubt the healthcare industry would tolerate doctors wasting ~37.5% of their time (75% of paperwork time is wasteful * 50% of doctors' time spent on paperwork = minimum 37.5% of doctors time wasted). Doctors are expensive, so recouping anywhere near 40% of their time would be a priority.
Doctors are expensive, but malpractice lawsuits are more expensive. Documentation is extremely important for lawsuits. If you get sued because a patient you saw last year later died and they're alleging improper health care(just to use a random example), it's highly dependent on having meticulously documented notes that document every single examination finding and treatment administered. Your memory isn't going to be accurate, and the prosecutor is going to be looking for any errors in documentation they can use.
>I very highly doubt the healthcare industry would tolerate doctors wasting ~37.5% of their time
I am sorry, have you been in the workplace in the past 20 years and have you tried adding up all the meeting that get shoved into your calendar? I am lucky if 50% of my day is not taken away from me
To imply that someone from higher up wouldn't tolerate' that most of my time is spent in meetings is simply laughable, they are the ones creating them!
I don't dispute the value of documentation for CYA. I'm saying that if CYA were the motivating use case, electronic medical systems would look a lot more like a Word document than like Epic (Epic is designed to standardize patient histories so they can be analyzed for research, not for paralegal convenience).
The majority of the notes being written by doctors now is boilerplate. A lot of it is copy-pasted. It's written because of insurance companies (which have incentive to deny claims), because of liability (which gives incentive to leave a lot of notes behind to make it looks like you thought about everything under the sun even if it wasn't applicable), and because of well-meaning but ultimately overly broad laws adding additional requirements even when they don't quite make sense.
I'm sure there is a treasure-trove of valuable data in there, especially compared to when it was all hidden away on physical paper. But you could probably reduce the paperwork that doctors do these days by a factor of 4 and not loose anything of value.