I was intrigued with the new post by Paul Muret from Google Health’s development team who cited last week the problem a 2016 Annals of Internal Medicine paper noting that clinicians spend half their day on a computer navigating electronic health records (EHRs) and other systems. I think that this problem is getting worse not better, but perhaps Care Studio is onto something. When this arrived, I had just come from a small clinical critical care unit that had 5 non-interactive EHR systems that were needed to complete my care notes each day and my good friend and fellow clinician noted he’d just finished seeing 60 patients but took he and a colleague 7 hours to complete their notes.
I worked with Roni Ziegler in the earlier days of the first iteration of Google Health and have had an affinity for their innovation saga ever since. With the Care Studio network they are onto something but peering inside is pretty hard as most of us know (more transparency please!). I’m encouraged by the progress with Care Studio, the latest Google software development, offers a platform that can provide a comprehensive view of patient healthcare records and allows clinicians to quickly search for patient information. Care Studio is designed to work alongside EHR systems and is intended reduced the time clinicians spend navigating complex health data so that they can increase the time they spend face-to-face with their patients. A system as dynamic and complex as Care Studio has had to overcome health data privacy and security challenges in adhering to all industry regulations including HIPAA. The development of this software opens the doors to conversations about data uses and shines a light on the many ways in which expanded data access can positively impact patient care.
With the demise of Haven, I’m counting on David Feinberg and the Google Health team to be the breakthrough of 2021 in making practical clinical informatics work at scale. Here’s hoping that there’s an end insight to cumbersome non-value add EHR systems and making the clinician’s life rewarding again.
More information on Care Studio below:
