Disagreement on Benefits of Computerized Health Records

Robert Pear, writing in the 6/7/2010 New York Times ("Doctors and Hospitals Say Goals on Computerized Records Are Unrealistic") quotes several sources to support his thesis that the Federal Government has promulgated inappropriate expectations and time-lines for implementation of billions of dollars ($34 billion) in subsidies for the purchase of health care computer systems by doctors and hospitals.

Although medical literature is divided on whether computerization benefits medical care outcome quality, it seems that medical and hospital administrators, who have no direct patient care ongoing experience and may be interested in the financial benefits of the subsidy, tend to praise the concept of computerization, though not the Obama administration's expectation and timelines.  For my part, I have never seen a computer that can quickly and inexpensively find a breast or testicular lump, or detect a swollen lymph node in the neck, or read a drug-seeking patient's body language. On the other hand, physicians who spend their time entering data into computer keypads probably won't have the time or incentive to carefully check for those breast, testicular and lymph node lumps and will probably find their patient flow statistics enhanced by giving the narcotic-seeking patients the drugs they want rather than deal with the complexities of care that these patient require.

The real benefits of the subsidy may be China, whose industries churn out huge numbers of (?virus infected?) computers which will be bought by American health care providers and brought into doctors' offices and health care facilities where they will store highly sensitive personal data. As someone whose personal medical data was stolen from a health care facility, I wonder if we really know what we are getting into?