Communication is at the heart of all the recent health care discussions, doctors and hospital systems are busy implementing EHRs, digitizing records and adopting software systems for better and faster communication. Except it isn’t working. Communication breakdowns are happening in hospital systems on the same network and even in the same hospital. Ask yourself how many questions you repeated the answer to during a hospital personnel shift change? How are the Nation’s hospitals going to battle the communication breakdown with new software solutions when the existing hospital systems can’t even communicate within the same network or even the same hospital?

It appears as though the chase is on to adopt new technology and furiously collect the overwhelming amount of stimulus money that is associated with these funds. Is this the correct thing to do when it clearly compromises patient care? The Nation is rushing to implement EHRs at the expense of patient safety. Nearly 100,000 Americans die each year from medical errors and the United States spends the most money on health care and ranks last among the seven industrialized countries. U.S. patients with chronic conditions are the most likely to report being given the wrong medication or the wrong dose of their medication, and experiencing delays in being notified about an abnormal test result. These patients visit their doctors regularly due to their chronic condition and trust that the doctor and/or hospital system has all of their records and medical information. Clearly this is a deadly assumption and one that even an electronic health record cannot address.

In February of 2010 Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) died after complications from a routine gallbladder surgery. This raised the question of whether his death resulted from a preventable medical error. According to research, only two percent of elective gallbladder surgeries result in death. Murtha died as a result of a surgical cut to his intestines that caused an infection and further complications. Murtha indeed died from a preventable medical error. According to Consumer Reports, “the dirty truth behind many errors and infections is that many are preventable by simply implementing a few basic practices, such as a checklist, better planning and communication”.

Taking the time to fix the communication problems that exist in current heath care systems will not only provide better patient care, but could lead technology in the correct direction for the most appropriate and comprehensive electronic health record adoption. Preventing medical errors can be as simple as the implementation of a checklist, so why are hospital systems rushing to implement EHRs? Until communication improves take it upon yourself as a medical consumer to research the surrounding hospitals and doctors to determine safety and quality. Enlist a family member to be your health advocate and help you ask the necessary questions and voice concerns. Finally, carry a copy of your medical record; do not trust that the hospital or doctor’s office will have your record or even communicate your health information to the next shift of personnel. Prepare to always be your own advocate and question everything as this is the only effective way to prevent a medical error from happening to you.