elias
Premium,VIP
join:2000-07-24
Miami, FL
clubs:  | Like in the Movies
Where the characters have all their medical records on a card/chip.
-- Elias
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Crunching the Midnight Oil |
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Swingerhead
Premium
join:2004-04-06
Richmond, VA | Except that this is each dr keeping their own digital records and having them be accessable to whoever needs them. Can you imagine the authentication issues with this? |
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elias
Premium,VIP
join:2000-07-24
Miami, FL
clubs:
1 edit | said by Swingerhead  :
Except that this is each dr keeping their own digital records and having them be accessable to whoever needs them. Can you imagine the authentication issues with this?
Well, as it is, and I don't think many know about it...
Insurance companies have a system they can access, sort of like the credit bureau, but for health-related things.
I believe it's called the MIB (Medical Information Bureau).
They can look-up pretty much anyone, and see certain things about them.
-- Elias
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Crunching the Midnight Oil |
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IamZed
Premium
join:2001-01-10
Dayton, OH
| Not a good thing at all
The insurance companies will love this. Get a cold? Your rates go up. Have anything seriously wrong with you? No insurance for you. I wonder who is backing this initiate the most.
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[url=www.flyingpuppet.com/shock/legato.htm]relax[/url] |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| I don't think electronic medical records are a bad thing as long as authentication remains properly in place. Let's say that you are on vacation and something happens to you that renders you unconscious. Currently, the emergency room docs won't have your medical history and will have to guess as to what you are allergic to, what medication you are taking, and what medical condition(s) you might have that could have caused this incident. With electronic medical records, they would be able to pull up your medical record, see that just what your medical history is, and make sure that your treatment is adjusted accordingly.
I don't believe insurance companies will have access to these systems any more than they have access to your current medical record. (They can infer things based on types of medications ordered, tests done, etc, but I don't think they have access to your actual medical record.)
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-Jason Levine
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/
http://www.PCQandA.com/
http://www.urateit.com/ |
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TheGiant
Next Year Is Here.
join:2001-03-28
Augusta, GA
1 edit | reply to IamZed
I think my medical records should be kept by me. When I go to the doctor I could bring them in Paper or digital format. The doctor could update them and I would be on my way. To many chances for abuse with such a database.
A standsrd format that the whole Health care industry can agree on would be helpful. That would cut the learning cure down for Health care professionals that tend to move from Job to job. It might also reduce the chance for errors in the records.
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Keep America safe Bush 2004
»www.georgewbush.com/KerryMediaCenter/ |
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coxta
Ultramundane
Premium
join:2000-07-15
LALALALALALA
 ·Pacific Bell - SBC
| When you need your medical records in an emergency, are you going to have them on hand? There are many advantages to having records available at a moments notice through a central clearing house.
Safety and privacy? Take a look at HIPAA regulations. They are extremely strigent. Much more so than laws concerning your personal financial records.
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Religion is for people who have not yet had a spiritual experience. |
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Mullberry
@royal-usa.net
| reply to TheGiant
It can be a good thing
Having you maintain your own health records seems like a bad idea to me. What if you lose or damage them? Do you have backups? That are up to date? Given the fact that when most home PC users lose a hard drive, the lose most of their info because of no backups, that just sounds like trouble. If they're paper, same issues - the dog ate em, lost in the shuffle, etc.
I think an electronic system has so many more advantages over paper. Not as likely to contain errors, Doctors/nurses can spot trends easier with graphing instead of reading columns of numbers from each visit, instant alerts when there may be a possible medication reaction based on other prescriptions, more accurate details on your current needs and history (do you always check off the right boxes and list all current meds?), instant sharing of info between doctors instead of waiting on a courier, etc. |
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TheGiant
Next Year Is Here.
join:2001-03-28
Augusta, GA
| reply to coxta
Re: Not a good thing at all
said by coxta :
When you need your medical records in an emergency, are you going to have them on hand? There are many advantages to having records available at a moments notice through a central clearing house.
Safety and privacy? Take a look at HIPAA regulations. They are extremely stringent. Much more so than laws concerning your personal financial records.
Where is the teeth in HIPPA sure it sounds good but in practice it is very lax. i know I regularly inform Doctors that this and that is against HIPPA and they say I can't be bothered with that. Keeping personal Medical records would be a chore but one that I would be willing to do and would not recommend for everyone. Yes I would keep backups and I would have them on me always with a usb keychain drive that could have a medic alert symbol on it. It could be done.
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Keep America safe Bush 2004 »www.georgewbush.com/KerryMediaCenter/ |
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davebenham
join:2002-01-31
Round Lake, IL
| legal questions?
How are they going to guarantee records haven't been modified? Pen on paper, photographic x-ray, cat scan, all this would be hard for the average person to modify. Now, you have your last cat scan or ultrasound in jpg format, or some other record in a pdf, what would stop a person from going in and modifying information for one reason of another?
Doctor misses something on an xray, all he needs to do is go in and edit the xray to remove what he missed and he's in the clear. Patient wants to commit insurance fraud, he just goes into a document and do a quick update.
I think the digitization of medical records across the board involves a lot more than just buying hospitals a bunch of high resolution scanners. |
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BizFinancing
Premium
join:2003-01-10
Port Orchard, WA
| reply to Mullberry
Re: It can be a good thing
I agree, the electronic route would be best to efficiently handle your personal medical records especially in the case of an emergency. Also it helps to reduce the hassles of transporting your records, reducing time and eliminating redundant forms for you to fill out at each new doctor's office.
The drug interaction issues is another good point, this will eliminate or reduce and chances for errors that could be fatal especially if you are not in a condition to tell ER staff what meds you are on.
The only area of concern that I would have is using the public internet as the means to access these records.
Unfortunately as history has shown us, no matter how good the encryption is, there is always a chance that it has some sort of flaw that a hacker/cracker can take advantage of.
My best recommendation would be to create a separate, private network to interconnect all participating medical offices, pharmacies and insurance companies. |
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coxta
Ultramundane
Premium
join:2000-07-15
LALALALALALA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to coxta
Re: Not a good thing at all
Times are changing and so does information storage and the size of medical records. A USB keyring wouldn't hold all your medical records. A single imaging study would consume far more memory than that. This isn't just about a paper chart in your doctor's office, but having records available in a hospital in which you would be transferred from department to department or many other scenarios.
Here is a spot from one of the world's premier medical instituion:
quote:
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester announced Friday that the paper trail ended for outpatients. From now on, the medical records resulting from nearly 1.5 million outpatient visits per year will be created and stored electronically.
It's also about consolidation of the medical community and the creation of centers of excellence. Remove the community hospital and have everyone sent to a specialty hospital.
Healthcare is the second largest expenditure for the US government outside of the defense budget. Anything that might increase the efficiency of medical care could have the potential for decreasing the financial costs. I'm sure you could still maintain your own medical records, but don't expect Medicare, Medcaid, or your Insurance company to assist you.
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Religion is for people who have not yet had a spiritual experience. |
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P Ness
You'Ve Forgotten 9-11 Already
Premium
join:2001-08-29
Mineola, NY
clubs:
| reply to TheGiant
said by TheGiant :
financial records.
Where is the teeth in HIPPA sure it sounds good but in practice it is very lax. i know I regularly inform Doctors that this and that is against HIPPA and they say I can't be bothered with that. Keeping personal Medical records would be a chore but one that I would be willing to do and would not recommend for everyone. Yes I would keep backups and I would have them on me always with a usb keychain drive that could have a medic alert symbol on it. It could be done.
Did you read it? Do you know that you also loose your job since most companies imposed such strict rules one infraction GONE!....
"(1) IN GENERAL.--Except as provided in subsection (b), the Secretary shall impose on any person who violates a provision of this part a penalty of not more than $100 for each such violation, except that the total amount imposed on the person for all violations of an identical requirement or prohibition during a calendar year may not exceed $25,000.
"(1) be fined not more than $50,000, imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both;
"(2) if the offense is committed under false pretenses, be fined not more than $100,000, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both; and
"(3) if the offense is committed with intent to sell, transfer, or use individually identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm, be fined not more than $250,000, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
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www.stopfcc.comI do not think the government needs to restrict free speech especially on a device that has an off knob. |
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P Ness
You'Ve Forgotten 9-11 Already
Premium
join:2001-08-29
Mineola, NY
clubs:
| reply to IamZed
said by IamZed :
The insurance companies will love this. Get a cold? Your rates go up. Have anything seriously wrong with you? No insurance for you. I wonder who is backing this initiate the most.
LOL...they already get a copy of your claim and everything wrong with you...and they retain this information even longer then your doc does....THEY ALREADY KNOW!
All contracts also include the right to review medical records and charts as part of on-site visit and audit privliages....
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www.stopfcc.comI do not think the government needs to restrict free speech especially on a device that has an off knob. |
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indysz
Premium
join:2003-07-26
Valparaiso, IN
·Verizon Online DSL
| Very nice
I think it's nice, and digital prescriptions proved to be helpful, and more cost efficent. I think as we move into the next decade we are going to look back and say "paper"? lol, the only paper needed will be rolling papers :]
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Indy SZ
Network Admin.
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Loves comcast 4.1/379
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BarneyBadAss
Badasses Fight For Freedom
Premium
join:2004-05-07
00001
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to davebenham
Re: legal questions?
But it is possible for the files to be locked when loaded... such that they can't be modified... sure.. it costs a fair about of $$$ to accomplish this task.. but it is possible.. data file chaining could easily be accomplished... such that when you open someones' file.. if you intend to "ammend" or "annotate" it in some way.. it makes a copy of the original file, and then allows the annotation to be made to the copy.. preserving the initial data.... at the end of the day; each updated record burned to say a DVD disk; with a disk catalog and record contents for each DVD associated with it.. is it costly.. sure is... can it be done.. of course.. the real questions are of access... and if a disk gets' damaged.. how do they recover it... ???
I can see many benifits from such a tool.. there are the downside possibilities too...
One of the possible downsides is that of entering the data into a PDA, then uploading that data.. who's to say someone doesn't get thier hands on the PDA and enters thier own data???? that could be a real problem too...
Also... should we consider digitizing the conversations in a surgical room and having those conversations recorded as part of the records as well?
If you have a phone conversation with your Dr's office, should it be recorded and burned???
What about the possibility of remote / robotic procedures.. should that data from the robot be stored as well?
Like I said.. I can certainly see a lot of really good things from this... perhaps the answer is we, as a society, aren't just quite ready for this... or perhaps, all the pitfalls haven't been thought of yet...
As for being "web-based".. if it's all kept on one server; and it gets sick or the DNS doesn't work.. then what???
It's likely everyone would need to be in via a VPN; with tons of encryption and verification...
Then there's the question about who in a Dr's office / insurance office should / would have a legimate need to view the patients records???
And if our data is "Off-shored" what assurance can be applied such that our data is indeed safe???
These are just lots of questions with no answers, well.. at least I can't answer them right off the cuff of my shirt..
Please notice.. I didn't say I'm not for it.. actually quite the contrary.. it's the parameters I'm a little.. no.. leme correct that.. a lot fuzzy on...
---Barney |
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MorWired
Premium
join:2001-03-03
clubs:
| Great potential -- for good AND for bad.
Centralized records, consistent and available in emergency situations, this sounds like any patient's and physician's dream.
But, privacy issues, data entry errors, system reliability and uptime -- these sound like a bureaucrat's nightmare of epic proportions.
All innovation must start somewhere, but how willing are we to chance our health and privacy? We've all heard about someone who stopped receiving benefits or was denied services because somehow they were in the system as being deceased, and it's clearly just a simple clerical error. What kinds of mechanisms could be put in place so that mistaken identities, incorrect diagnoses, or incorrect medications aren't potentially jeopardizing our lives?
As for privacy, right now we go to this doctor for this, and that doctor for that, the likelihood of anyone being able to put together a complete picture of our lives is pretty slim. But how comfortable will we be knowing that there's a centralized database where an unscrupulous employee or a skilled hacker could have access to a complete snapshot of our lives, everything from substance abuse treatment to STDs to mental health to a terminated or adopted pregnancy -- all there, in one place. The potential for disaster is really quite frightening.
It all boils down to a risk/benefit ratio, and how much trust do we have for the system. And will this be an opt-in sort of thing? or will it be a fait accompli, and how we feel about it will really be irrelevant? There is a lot of room for discussion here, it will be interesting to see how the program develops.
--
Get your daily dose of wonder from the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| reply to davebenham
Re: legal questions?
Authentication, authorization, and tracking. HIPPA is very stringent as to who sees medical information for what purposes. I work for a health care organization and I run into HIPPA concerns constantly. If I were to merely look at a medical record that I wasn't supposed to be looking at, I could (and probably would) get fired. If a nurse leaves a computer station without logging out (thus leaving the possibility open that someone could gain access to sensitive patient info), that nurse can and will be fired immediately. Any medical organization without proper authentication, authorization, and tracking systems in place face steep fines under HIPPA.
In addition, modern medical equipment more and more comes with the ability to interface with a hospital's computer systems. So that X-Ray wouldn't be scanned into the computer, it will get placed there by the machine itself.
You'll never get a "fraud-proof" system, but the advantages of an electronic medical record outway the risks.
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-Jason Levine
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/
http://www.PCQandA.com/
http://www.urateit.com/ |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| reply to TheGiant
Re: Not a good thing at all
See P Ness's post. HIPPA has teeth. Those docs that "can't be bothered" with HIPPA are risking fines and jail time. I work for a health care network and before we roll out a new application that even remotely touches on patient data, we ask our lawyers whether it runs afoul of HIPPA. If it does (or falls into a gray area), we modify it until it's good to go. In fact, a good way to give a health care lawyer a heart attack is to suggest doing something that flagrantly violates HIPPA. 
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-Jason Levine
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/
http://www.PCQandA.com/
http://www.urateit.com/ |
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hedyd4u
Premium
join:2003-12-16
Schenectady, NY
| Proposed by the US dept of health
No good can come of this the government is behind it. Somewhere somehow this will become a nightmare. Look at the track record of the government what has been done for the estimated cost and done well. This is being backed by someone with a vested interest and the consumer is not the vested interest. |
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