Why Doctors Hate Their Computers

This piece made the rounds in many of my circles a few months ago, and for good reason. Atul Gawande, a surgeon, considers his experience with the introduction of increasingly prescriptive medical records technologies.

Gawande touches on so many of my interests: the labour implications of technology; why we ought to open access to data via APIs; systems thinking; organizational changes caused by technology; building software with the people who’ll use it; and the importance, above all, of remembering the humans.

Many fear that the advance of technology will replace us all with robots. Yet in fields like health care the more imminent prospect is that it will make us all behave like robots. And the people we serve need something more than either robots or robot-like people can provide. They need human enterprises that can adapt to change.