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The effect of the electronic health record on consultants' responsibility for patients and their care in general medicine

Martin B Whyte and Philip A Kelly
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.7861/fhj.2022-0001
Future Healthc J May 2022
Martin B Whyte
AKing's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK and University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Roles: consultant in diabetes and acute medicine and associate professor in metabolic medicine
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  • For correspondence: m.b.whyte@surrey.ac.uk
Philip A Kelly
BKing's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
Roles: consultant in acute medicine
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Abstract

The electronic health record has dramatically improved the safety of medical care as well as the clarity and accessibility of the notes. An equally profound, but under-recognised consequence, is the effect it has had on ‘patient ownership' and responsibility within the hospital. It is now very easy to access and read through patients notes, from a distance and at scale, to identify patients for attention. Automated alerts can be set for quantitative laboratory or physiological variables, for the same purpose, and artificial intelligence is being developed for alerts based on free text or radiographic interpretation. This article explores the risk of this approach to healthcare and the danger of a ‘collusion of anonymity', whereby responsibility for care is sufficiently diffuse that no one has ownership of a patient's care.

KEYWORDS:
  • ownership
  • electronic health record
  • © Royal College of Physicians 2022. All rights reserved.
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The effect of the electronic health record on consultants' responsibility for patients and their care in general medicine
Martin B Whyte, Philip A Kelly
Future Healthc J May 2022, fhj.2022-0001; DOI: 10.7861/fhj.2022-0001

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The effect of the electronic health record on consultants' responsibility for patients and their care in general medicine
Martin B Whyte, Philip A Kelly
Future Healthc J May 2022, fhj.2022-0001; DOI: 10.7861/fhj.2022-0001
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