Why do Doctors still use a pager?

[aircooled]

During a local emergency (ice storm, hurricane, etc...) your cell phone is not going to have service available.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad

Originally posted by: MrChad
The healthcare industry is one of the most technophobic in the world. Why do you think doctors still have those giant file cabinets to hold hundreds (thousands) of paper medical records?

you're an idiot...have you been in a hospital? how can doctors be technophobic when everything they do is tech related.

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I realize that technology is an integral part of medicine. But in terms of management and record keeping, the majority of hospitals and doctor's offices continue to rely on paper rather than computers.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: Gnrslash4life
I dont know but here at the company i work for in IT we all have pagers when i think it would make more sense to have a phone. Yet the managers use Nextel.

me too, i have to carry a stupid pager to get after hours calls and to get system pages from the monitors we have. This pager sucks its a skytel 2-way talk about. all of us have problems responding to pages from each other, on the reply the message will fail and the pager will get slammed into basic service.

we are trying hard to get management to get us blackberries.

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I realize that technology is an integral part of medicine. But in terms of management and record keeping, the majority of hospitals and doctor's offices continue to rely on paper rather than computers.

A lot is because the technology is still developing, and there are still significant 'teething pains' with it (e.g. records on one system aren't easily portable to another system. Eariler systems used complex diagnostic coding schemes, which if the user wasn't very familiar with e.g. the same surgery may have multiple different codes depending on what the provisional diagnosis was before the surgery).

Additionally, where some technology is already in use - some of that technology may not be compatible with a brand new hospital wide system. E.g. my hospital wants to get a digital x-ray image storage/network system (PACS). However, many of their digital x-ray machines are old enough, that they would not be compatible with a modern storage/networking system. But at the same time, x-ray machines are too expensive to replace when they've still got a good 5 years useful life left in them.

 

[deejayshakur]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad

Originally posted by: MrChad
The healthcare industry is one of the most technophobic in the world. Why do you think doctors still have those giant file cabinets to hold hundreds (thousands) of paper medical records?

you're an idiot...have you been in a hospital? how can doctors be technophobic when everything they do is tech related.

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I realize that technology is an integral part of medicine. But in terms of management and record keeping, the majority of hospitals and doctor's offices continue to rely on paper rather than computers.

try again. that too, is changing. have you heard of EMR? the use of tablets? granted, it's a work in progress, but it's changing.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: deejayshakur

Originally posted by: MrChad
Perhaps I should have been more specific. I realize that technology is an integral part of medicine. But in terms of management and record keeping, the majority of hospitals and doctor's offices continue to rely on paper rather than computers.

try again. that too, is changing. have you heard of EMR? the use of tablets? granted, it's a work in progress, but it's changing.

Like my dentist...an office packed to the gills with the hottest new dental technology. Yet stare at the reception desk for awhile. There's something weird about it. It takes you awhile to put your finger on it - NO COMPUTER. All scheduling and billing is still done through paper and pencil. Cracks me up everytime.

 

[OutHouse]

Its not the doctors who decide what they will use, its the IT dept. their infratructure is or was made for pagers and getting the hospital management to provide funding to change paging systems is a huge undertaking..

 

[Pliablemoose]

Something has to work when their Treo's need to be reset

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Because doctors are old people. And old people hate technology.

And a lot of them are cheap.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

I have to carry both, as stated I'm always in building basements and such and the cell phones are usually dead down there.

 

[huberm]

i pushed to get a cell phone for work last year, instead of carrying around this stupid pager they pay $15/mo for. They said it would cost too much.