IT Is Not The Doctor's Real Enemy

Bias refers to a broad set of errors that physicians can make when trying to draw conclusions without relying on strong evidence. Unintentional bias can take many forms: looking for answers in just the easy places, seeing what the physician expects to see, and favoring interpretations that somehow benefit the physician or care organization. Information technology such as advanced analytics help medical practitioners--who are human beings unavoidably subject to these biases--to minimize them.

The Real Enemy

So hopefully you can see the flaws in these arguments against EBM. If we observe that there are risks in how we analyze information, then the best course of action would be one that allows us to manage all of those risks, not just one type. If one agrees that research populations are too narrow, then surely the populations served by a single artful physician are also too small.

If one believes that traditional research models do not account for the huge number of variables impacting an individual's health, then surely the human mind--which is only capable of weighing a handful of factors at one time--should be supplemented with technology to draw better conclusions. If one acknowledges that large sample sizes are needed to detect small statistical effects, then it stands to reason we should be using information technology to increase our sample sizes beyond the medical charts of a single physician.

The real enemy of medicine is our natural tendency to cling to what we know--old ways of practicing medicine--in hopes they will produce transformational results. They can't.

So do academic and community physicians disagree on the value of information technology? Definitely. But it is more about costs and usability than the value of evidence-based medicine. Most physicians--whether community or academic-based--want to serve their patients the best that they can, and they are not afraid of new information to aid them in their mission.

Successful health CIOs understand how practitioners will use technology to improve care, and how they can minimize the negative effects of costs and poor usability.

Medicine will always be an art--it deals with people, after all. But we need not turn our backs on science out of fear of the new and unknown. And in 21st century medicine, science is pursued with information technology.

Jason Burke is Managing Director and Chief Strategist of the Center for Health Analytics and Insights at SAS Institute.

The Healthcare IT Leadership Forum is a day-long venue where senior IT leaders in healthcare come together to discuss how they're using technology to improve clinical care. It happens in New York City on July 12. Find out more.