His First

So it’s official. My little guy got his first cold. I can’t even put the blame on somebody other than myself (damn); after all, he got my cold. When the on-call pediatrician returned my call on Saturday afternoon I was grateful — grateful that she told me what to do for now, what to do for the future (should he ever have a cold again, which he of course will), and mostly that it’s just a cold and not too serious. She looked-up his medical information right away, and even commented when he had last been in the office. I’m not thankful for EMRs solely for the sake of technology in a ‘wow, look what we can do’ sort of way, and hope that CIOs and EMR vendors never lose track of the ‘why’ as they create and implement these systems. After all, if you can’t help those who can’t (yet) speak — be it due it an accident that has rendered them unconscious, or the fact that they are only a few months old, then what exactly are you doing? The point, we must never forget, is patient care, especially as the next wave of EMRs takes place and as we move into the next generation (sorry, bad pun) of PACS.