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

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.