EMR pioneer Dr. Warner Slack dies at 85

Warner Slack, MD, a Boston-based Harvard Medical School professor and a pioneering force in the development of EMRs, died from lung disease June 23. He was 85 years old, according to WBUR.

Dr. Slack sought to get patients more involved in their healthcare more than 50 years ago and firmly believed the computer would be instrumental to that goal, despite criticism stating otherwise.

"I hoped that the computer would help the doctor in the care of the patient. And in the back of my mind was the idea that the computer might actually help patients to help themselves with their medical problems," he said at an event in February, WBUR reports.

A longtime physician at Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Slack contributed to a project called OurNotes, which allows patients to see and contribute to their own medical records.

"[Dr. Slack] believed that any patient at any educational level could interact with the computer and not only give us physicians useful information but also could help treat themselves," Charles Safran, MD, chief of the clinical informatics division at Beth Israel Deaconess, told WBUR.

"The technology that he invented and envisioned, he and his partner could have patented this stuff, and they could have been unbelievably wealthy men. But that was never their interest. His interest was only in taking care of patients. At the end of the day, if some patient was better because of his work, he was a happy person," he added.

To access the full report, click here.

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