Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Bad Health IT: "People Aren’t Educated on How to Use the Internet"

The ultimate "blame the user" excuse for bad health IT comes from, of all places, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

Washington Free Beacon
http://freebeacon.com/issues/harry-reid-people-arent-educated-on-how-to-use-the-internet/


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said the fault of struggling to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges didn’t lie with the faulty website, but with the people who weren’t “educated on how to use the Internet.”

Explaining the reasoning behind the latest Obamacare delay, Reid said too many people just didn’t know to use their computer properly and needed more time. Apparently, it had nothing to do with the well-documented failings of the website that have embarrassed the White House for months.  [Really?  What an amazing theory about IT difficulties - ed.]

“We have hundreds of thousands of people who tried to sign up who didn’t get through,” he said. “There are some people who are not like my grandchildren who can handle everything so easily on the Internet, and these people need a little extra time. It’s not — the example they gave us is a 63-year-old woman came into the store and said, ‘I almost got it. Every time I just about got there, it would cut me off.’  

Obviously due to user error, not due to poor health IT.

We have a lot of people just like this through no fault of the Internet, but because people are not educated on how to use the Internet.”

It's not the software designer's or website's fault, it's the fault of Americans, most of whom are dummies and who should know how to get around bad health IT's flaws. 

Wow.

That's why physicians complain about health IT too, no doubt.  They're dummies.

Maybe Mr. Reed should speak with the inventor of the Internet, former Veep Al Gore, about that.  Mr. Gore can perhaps write a better "Internet Instruction Manual for Dummies."

(I'll bet most of the dummies who "do not know how to use the Internet" have no problems using Amazon.com or eBay.)

-- SS

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I spent a decade listening to "highly trained" HIT staff tell physicians that it's basically their fault. This is nothing new.

Anonymous said...

What a genius!

Steve Lucas said...

This is not the first time Mr. Reid has made outrageous statements. Problematic is that he, and other politicians, are never held to account for those statements. Continually elected because they cater to a small but vocal constituency they have been allowed to play these political games until now we find they have no relevance to reality.

The only statement Mr. Reid has made that I agree with is when he in a halting voice said: “I just don’t understand.”

Steve Lucas

InformaticsMD said...

Anonymous March 26, 2014 at 4:54:00 PM EDT said...

I spent a decade listening to "highly trained" HIT staff tell physicians that it's basically their fault. This is nothing new

Compared to a physician's education and training, the typical hospital "HIT staff" with bachelor's or perhaps master's degrees (or no degrees) need to be more humble.

Perhaps being defendants in cases of health IT-related patient harm would help their humility.

-- SS

Anonymous said...

It should also be noted that physicians will be penalized by our government unless we can attest to meeting Stage II Meaningful-use which depends on patients using a portal to access their electronic medical records, schedule appointments and communicate with offices electronically. Our healthcare system is doomed!

Anonymous said...

He's saying it's the old favorite IT Help Desk problem resolution code" "PICNIC" - Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.....