Patient Satisfaction?

I was reading this article where this man called Abraham Verghese, MD, spoke about pysicians relying too much on technology such as Electronic Medical Records (EMR). He wrote about physicians turning patients into virtual versions called "ipatients". He wrote that physicians would take care of their patients through the computers instead of talking with them directly. He believes that there is no substitute for bedside skills and that patients are not satisfied with that kind of situation.

Now i don't know if that's true. Personally speaking I think that if I can get out of the doctors office quicker so that i can continue my day I would be very satisfied. Who is he to speak for the patients as if he knew everything about how we, the patients, respond to medicine.

If physicians don't want to implement EMR's because they think the patients will not respond to them well, then I believe that maybe they should stop jumping to conclusions. Recently a team of physicians created a study to observe and determine patient satisfaction with EMR's. Six studies found that EMR'S had a positive or neutral effect on patient satisfaction. One study found found a negative effect on the physicians perception of patient satisfaction. This shows that the only negative thoughts on EMR's were from a physicians perspective.

Maybe physicians should not think that their thoughts are the same as the thoughts of patients. I think patients like myself prefer to get seen in a hospital faster and get of it faster too.