It’s Christmas time again and every year around this time drag myself into my doctor’s office to get a physical.

Lately, it’s been a semi-annual thing (stupid metabolic irregularities) so I’ve built up quite a friendly rapport with my new physician, the nursing crew, and other support staff.

But today was a good day – at first.

First Impressions of a Paperless Doctor’s Office

Today was the first time I had paid them a visit since they had officially joined the “Going Paperless” movement (December 1st), or in some cases, gone as “paper light” as the bean counters and legal entities of the world will permit.

It was rather Jetson’s-like to see a bunch of busy physicians and nurses walking from room to room with their high tech tablet PCs.  Of course, a few of the older members of the staff were carrying older laptops in a half open position with a single, archaic looking USB wireless router sticking out like a sore thumb.

I quickly asked why the big money makers – the physicians – were using the older, lower tech gadgets and the nurses jokingly said “it’s because they’re old and out of touch“.  Later on, I found out it was really because the nurses needed them more since they do most of the official record keeping.  Makes perfect sense from a time management perspective… give your hardest working employees the best tools to ensure optimal productivity.

Technology Issues and User Un-Friendly Problems Surface

As my reluctant treehugger side was cheering them on for ditching the paper waste and ink pollution (as well as reducing their carbon footprint and consumable expenditures), I noticed my uber-sensitive Type A personality began to get annoyed.

Problem was, everything was taking about twice as long as before.

It may seem like I’m nit-picking or unfairly exaggerating, but even the most basic of tasks, like filling out a lab sheet for a few lab tests took over 10 minutes.  Five minutes for the nurse to scroll through the menu, identify and select the proper tests, print out the one and only sheet to take to the lab, and finally, initial & date the final copy.

I told you I was Type A!

This usually took less than one minute in the old days since everyone had memorized where each and every test was located.  Learned responses from constant repetition is indeed a powerful tool.

Overall, a 30 to 45 minute appointment took approximately 90 minutes today.  I’m officially labeling my first doctor’s new paperless office as unimpressive with a C+ grade.

Am I Being Unneccessarily Harsh?

Probably.  I put a huge emphasis on my time because time is our most precious commodity. Therefore, I want to be in and out ASAP, and I’m sure the bean counters want the same thing.

Physicians only spend 5 to 20 minutes of real face time with their patients anyway, and I didn’t even get that today.  Instead, I got a handshake from the doc and spent 10 minutes with the nurse practitioner watching her fiddle and curse at her laptop.  The rest of my 90 minute visit was spent waiting between newly created “paperwork stations” so the staff could get caught up with their record keeping.  So much for productivity and efficiency upgrades!

Why I’m Still a Satisfied Patient?

Again, my treehugger side is appeased.  Yes, it sucked to sit there and watch grown adults place all the blame on their laptops being too slow or being too old to learn a new technology, but fact is I’m glad to see this has finally taken hold.  Even President Elect Obama has a plan to push such improvements in our healthcare system, and even mighty Google itself has been aggressively pushing it’s personal health technology into pilot programs all across the U.S.

Bottom line, going paperless is here has a ton of worthwhile benefits.  Don’t be surprised if it comes to your doctor’s office sometime soon (if not already), but I just hope your first impression of a “green doctor’s office” will be better than mine.

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If you have had a similar experience, or just want to yell at me for speaking ill of the going paperless movement, I encourage any and all comments.

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Photo by luxomedia