April 20, 2009, Page 9
In “Wrong Prescription,” Dr. Scott Haig correctly suggests that digital medical records are no silver bullet for the costly, inefficient U.S. health system, but for the wrong reasons [TIME, April 6, 2009].
Information technology (IT) improves efficiency with the rules of the game currently in play. If the rules reward treating disease complications but discourage management and prevention, IT will help health-care businesses churn out more complications per hour.
The fundamental flaw in our current system is that despite decades of debate, no one has an adequate stake in preventing those costly complications in the first place.
Steve Brown — Published in TIME