Feeling Guilty

I lied today.

I feel guilty.

But it was good.

I feel a bit like Robin Hood: stealing from the wealthy and giving to the poor.

So in order to clear my consciousness, I'll confess to my transgression...

... I am not authorized to practice medicine in the state of California, yet clicked on a webscreen button intended only for California physicians.

It seems California doctors are special, at least in the eyes of Kaiser Permanente, when it comes to making helpful suggestions about managing heart disease.

We have designed our website to help everyone in our communities have the healthiest heart possible. Our clinical experts understand the critical role that individual clinicians play in helping their patients lead heart-healthy lives. We want to provide a resource to California practitioners in their efforts to help their California patients make healthy heart choices about their lives. If you are a California clinician, we hope that the Kaiser Permanente tools and resources we are offering on our website will be useful for you in your practice. Over time, we are planning to add more resources as we develop them. This information is not intended to provide medical advice or services to any individual.

But you know what? Their recommendations aren't bad. Their flow charts and data seem sound, and they might just help doctors of the front lines of health care around the world remember a simple approach to evidence-based management of common cardiovascular ailments.

But there's just one catch...

... if you don't practice medicine in California, you'll have to lie to use them.

-Wes

EPIC Capacity Concerns Aired

EPIC Systems of Wisconsin runs many of the hospital information systems here in the Chicago area, and recent "upgrades" to software have demonstrated noticeable slowing and occassional "hanging" of the system from time to time. While there are always issues with new software releases that need "fixing," these glitches are placed in a new light after reading concerns of a former employee at Kaiser Permanente, Juten Deal, who e-mailed concerns about the selection of EPIC as Kaiser Permanente's medical record system to his fellow employees. These issues included those of significant costs, conflicts of interest, and capacity concerns. While Kaiser responded to his e-mail after a "thorough investigation" and described his claims "an unfortunate combination of partial facts, old data, incomplete data, 'conspiracy' thinking, and naiveté" concluding that "It raised alarms that were extremely inaccurate."

I have a feeling this will not be the last we hear of this incident.

-Wes

References:
Justen Deal's website fixkp.org.
Wall Street Journal article (subscription) with links to the E-mail and Kaiser Permanente's response.
Kaiser Permanente's response.