It has been my good fortune to have experience with three different electronic anesthesia records (EMRs). And though I make no claims about being an expert on any of these platforms, having practical knowledge of these distinctive EMRs does provide some validity to my comments.
Shortly after the move to Texas Heart® Institute’s new Denton A. Cooley Building (dedicated in 2002), the institute’s Division of Cardio-vascular Anesthesiology converted to an electronic intraoperative anesthesia record. This medical record was one of the products offered by the makers of the fine anesthesia machines we were using at our hospital at the time. I was part of the team organized to design and implement the new computer-based anesthesia record. Looking back on it now, choosing me as a member of this group seems a bit far-fetched. Then, as now, I was facile with computers, but I certainly did not write computer code,...
