Paper kills more than trees
I went into the Apple store a while back to buy some headphones. Once I’d made my selection, a woman came out with a hand held computer thingie, scanned the item, scanned my credit card, and Emailed me a receipt. My iPhone beeped and I was off…
Or, you know, wanton frolicking sends me down the street to Safeway. Instead of relying on my memory, my awful handwriting, or a piece of paper, she texts me. Maybe from AIM, maybe from Google, but the shopping list goes right to my phone.
Compare this to what happens when a doctor prescribes something. As Ezra Klein puts it “Currently, doctors write your prescription on a pad of paper. They write it in a quick scrawl, to be interpreted by a tired pharmacist.”
Each year 1.5 million Americans are injured or die because some doctor had handwriting as bad as mine. The solution is obvious and almost unused: Email.
So, what prevents doctors from instantly employing this life saving invention? Money. Specifically, it costs about US$3,000 per doctor to implement. And three grand of a doctor’s own, personal dollars to save your life? It’s an investment not many are willing to make. And so the heavy hand of government has to step in and offer incentives.
I guess free-market medicine can’t fix everything. But we knew that…
