The EHR has been around longer than you think. Even before the current desktop style microcomputers existed, a few hospitals implemented early versions of this product. One of the first was the Latter Day Saints Hospital in Salt Lake City. It installed what it called the HELP system, an acronym for Health Evaluation through Logical Programming.

As computing power increased and the size of the computer box and its cost decreased, a series of advances in medical software systems began to occur. In 1983, a software product geared toward resource scheduling was introduced, and became one of the leading applications of its kind. Most people recognize the name Cadence, but few realize that this was one of the earliest product releases from Epic Systems Corporation.

In 1988, the US government contracted out to develop an electronic record system for the military, much of which is still in use today. On a smaller scale, PC type computers were almost 10 years old in 1990 when Microsoft introduced what I consider the first real version of Windows, version 3.0. Epic was once again an innovator, and it released a product called EpicCare for Windows.

Beginning in 2004, there was a move within the government to emphasize implementation of EHRs across the US, spearheaded by President George W. Bush. And as expected, this led to a number of products developed by a variety of software makers. The push to roll out an EHR universally continues to this day, with no end in sight.

Is this a good thing or a bad one? Although much maligned, the EHR can certainly offer benefits. However, like anything touted as a miracle drug or device, there are always downsides. I’ll review both over the course of the week, but my focus will be on one very specific trauma problem: use of the EHR during trauma resuscitation. Many trauma programs either voluntarily adopted the use of an electronic trauma flow sheet (eTFS), or were forced into it by their hospital administration or IT department. Good idea or not?

We shall see…