"America Has Little to Show for Its Investment": Where EHRs Have Failed to Improve Healthcare

​Patient harm, increased incidence of fraud, and physician burnout are among the downsides in the decade since the push began to digitize health records, according to an in-depth collaborative investigation published on March 18, 2019, by Kaiser Health News and Fortune Magazine. The authors interviewed more than 100 physicians, patients, information technology experts, health policy leaders, attorneys, and government officials, as well as representatives from several electronic health record (EHR) vendors. EHRs were supposed to "make medicine safer, bring high-quality care, empower patients, and yes, even save money," but 10 years after President Obama signed HITECH, targeting better EHR use and supporting health data interoperability, the authors say, "America has little to show for its investment." The report cites numerous patient safety risks that EHRs have caused, tied to software issues and user errors, and there is no central database to compile and study such events.