Opinion: The EMR has changed the doctor-patient duet into a ménage-à-trois

You would have thought that my hospital was preparing for the imminent coming of the messiah. Digital countdown clocks posted around the hospital ticked down the weeks, days, minutes, and seconds till the vaunted day. For months, every medical, logistical, academic, and intrapersonal transaction was beholden to April 1.

That the hospital had chosen April Fools’ Day to transition hundreds of thousands of patients and their clinicians to a new electronic medical record (EMR) was either a cosmic oversight or some techie’s idea of wit. But on April 1, our old system with its 20 years of painstakingly accrued data was put out to pasture and we entered the new world of Epic, which is now the predominant electronic medical record in the U.S.

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