The invisible wasteland of health care data The enormous amount of information generated by the medical industry is creating an environmental disaster

https://www.statnews.com/2024/12/03/health-care-data-storage-environmental-cost-climate-change/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_FUx223Tbu7cy3evVBpczUGzMq9lrF3sHFW242JlmwIi3AJlGXabrP8URizBIaMCElVK80ae1hstuaptAT4pAaxf6nDA&_hsmi=336669328&utm_content=336669328&utm_source=hs_email first opinion The invisible wasteland of health care data Physicians spend almost two hours each day doing patient documentation, on top of actually seeing and treating those patients. There are clinical notes, lab results, structured data sets for billing requirements, and more. You’ve heard about this before, but it’s more than an issue of physician burnout or user errors. There are environmental implications to the enormous amounts of data that hospitals create. In a new First Opinion essay, two physicians argue that the health care community must work to prevent the environmental damage caused by data storage and management. “Unbeknownst to many of us, our current practices are likely causing far-reaching harms that fly freely under our radars because they are supposedly better than the old practices,” they write. We were inspired to become primary care physicians. Now we’re reconsidering a field in crisis By Richard Joseph and Sohan JapaJune 20, 2019 https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/20/primary-care-field-crisis/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--x5iOuKQdn4FJUe62KqodxEveLSiVgzQnRykkfGkZRi9Wtzpd9lFdjHRgUgvXNfanMMX83zrXSclKR9AI9g4EQ86--6A&_hsmi=336669328&utm_content=336669328&utm_source=hs_email Bloated patient records are filled with false information, thanks to copy-paste By Sandeep JauharJune 20, 2023 https://www.statnews.com/2023/06/20/medical-records-errors-copy-paste/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8wg1ODm2fN54hPbJhAajXcXZZY6HHVjbsbHsPB2HTjlQ5EiV80KytjrJWaSVQDfEzhqvzSWkyLuJSVDhr9QPNjuglzHA&_hsmi=336669328&utm_content=336669328&utm_source=hs_email