The digital doctor Hope, hype, and harm at the dawn of medicine's computer age

In this highly accessible survey, Wachter (physician and interim chair of the Department of Medicine, Univ. of California, San Francisco) deftly chronicles how technology is transforming the practice of medicine with the digitization of the medical record. Today's electronic health records (EHRs), once doctors' personal records of patient interactions, fuel big data and a powerful new industry. Wachter discusses the federal government's role in medicine's rapid adoption of EHRs through policy and funding and introduces readers to EHR vendors--ranging from established incumbents to start-ups. Psychological, sociological, and cultural effects are examined through the lenses of emerging patient online communities, the changing doctor-patient relationship, and growing privacy concerns as health information goes online. Technology's multifaceted effect on medicine is illustrated by patients' new empowerment to become active participants in their own health care and the potential dangers that arise when computers micromanage clinical decision-making. Wachter weaves in interviews, portraits, and anecdotes throughout, making this an engaging book that will appeal to both general and specialist audiences. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Kimberly Kristin Mitchell, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

Acknowledging that so much of the practice of modern medicine is concerned with information (gathering, organizing, and making sense of it), physician-executive Wachter views the alliance between computers and doctors as a necessary but uneasy partnership. While Wachter sees promise in the computerization of health care, he is troubled by how the digital transformation of medicine is already disrupting the doctor-patient relationship. More and more, a physician's eye contact is directed toward his or her laptop computer rather than patients. And Wachter is bothered by the absurdity of health-care billing that encourages stuffing piles of data, much of it redundant, into electronic medical records (EMRs). ER doctors now devote more than 40 percent of their time just entering information into EMRs. Wachter writes about the complexity of health-care IT systems, patient access and contributions to their office notes, IBM's Watson (the Jeopardy-champion supercomputer), and intelligent, biosensing underwear. Maybe the best take on modern medicine's man versus machine debate is provided by Warner Slack, a physician and informatics expert: Any doctor who could be replaced by a computer should be. --Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2015 Booklist