Ross Koppel recently participated in a TV broadcast panel discussion on Electronic Health Records. The broadcast was produced by Politico, and the video is available on their website: http://www.politico.com/events/outside-in-2015-kickoff-event/
Here is a write-up on the panel from the Politico website:
"PANELISTS: LIABILITY, USABILITY ISSUES WITH EHRS MUST BE SORTED OUT : Electronic health records and health IT have greatly improved care, but there are great strides to be made before the systems are highly usable, experts said at POLITICO's "Outside: In" event yesterday. The shift to EHRs have made care safer and more efficient, experts agreed. "But is it good enough? Is it as good as it should be, given the cost and effort? The answer is no, resoundingly," said Ross Koppel of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a leading critic of the technology. Jacob Reider, chief strategy officer of health IT company Kyron and formerly of the ONC, said he doesn't disagree with Koppel, but said the industry and government have made great progress in setting standards and rules for making EHRs more usable. EHRs have improved care, but they're not perfect "in any way," said Bernadette Loftus, associate executive director of Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser docs have had the ability to fine-tune and code their EHR to their liking - something not every hospital has the ability or resources to do, Reider and Koppel pointed out. Human error and liability are major unresolved issues, but government regulators have taken an industry-friendly approach, said Koppel. Harold Thimbleby, a professor of computer science at the University of New South Wales, said the blame for EHR errors will be an ongoing debate until liability issues are sorted out."