Homo EHRectus

In what could be the most significant archaeological discovery of the millennium, four teenage boys and a dog named Trax have discovered the remains of an ancient predecessor of modern man. The hominid, who probably walked with a slouch and stood 5 feet tall in wingtips, apparently died while trying to use an equally ancient, legacy electronic health record that was discovered nearby by the same group.

The boys also found a rusted server and a 750-page, water-logged training manual in a nearby ditch.

Archaeologists quickly descended on the site, which is near Montignac, a town in the Dordogne region of France. The region is already famous for its proximity to the caves of Lascaux, which are adorned with paintings dating back 17,000 years to the Upper Paleolithic period.

Early observations by the archaeologists suggest the decomposed body is a remarkably intact specimen of Homo EHRectus. If these observations are confirmed, it would roil existing theories about the evolution of man. Prior to the discovery, experts believed that Homo EHRectus existed only in hospital-like cave dwellings…at least before they died, apparently due to toxic frustration and historic floods of error messages.

There are no hospital-like cave dwellings near Montignac. For this reason, the scientists will want to determine the caveman’s cause of death, since this could help prove that ancient, legacy EHR systems were incapable of supporting care in ambulatory settings.

The finding could also help explain one of the great mysteries surrounding the Lascaux cave paintings. Whereas most of these paintings depict realistic images of large animals known to have lived in the area at the time, a set of abstract symbols and geometric figures in one of the caves had defied explanation until now.

The carved symbols were previously assumed to have astronomical significance, or to reflect visions experienced during ritualistic trance-dancing. But the discovery of a legacy EHR near the remains of the prehistoric man makes it likely that they reflect work-around protocols that Homo EHRectus used to circumvent insanely poor system design, as well as help-line numbers that the cavemen could have used when their systems crashed.

One of the boys involved in the discovery, Pierre Foufou, was amazed by the primitive architecture associated with the EHR he discovered. “I’m studying to be a doctor,” Foufou told Paris Match. “I don’t know how those little men could have gotten their work done with something so old-school. Web-based EHRs sure did change everything, didn’t they?”

Glenn Laffel, MD, PhD
Sr. VP Clinical Affairs
Practice Fusion EMR