Health IT guru David Kibbe writes that simply adopting electronic records aren’t enough. For one, many EMRs don’t talk to one another, and this loses one of the fundamental advantages of the digitization of medical records:
Many EMR vendors have resisted the call to make their software capable of exporting and importing a standard set of summary personal health data in computable format such as the Continuity of Care Record, CCR, xml standard. This means that for all practical purposes most EMRs remain “islands of data” that can’t connect even with the archipelago of data in their communities, not to mention the continents of data elsewhere.
The next step is trying to convince physicians to adopt electronic records that may not be best for the individual practices, but can help with a global re-organization strategy.
That’s a tall order, and has to be accompanied with physician payment reform. Doctors currently have zero incentive to make the sacrifice, as contributing to the greater good means bankruptcy in many cases:
[Doctors] are right to protest that their painful reality is that they’re NOT organized in this integrated manner, and that becoming more efficient to the “system” through health IT purchases may actually mean money is taken out of their own practices’ pockets.
topics: electronic records, health IT
Related posts:
- How the widespread adoption of electronic medical records can raise health care costs
- Are hospitals the primary beneficiaries of the health IT stimulus?
- Pie in the sky and electronic records
- AMA: Health information technology help for physicians
- Will the benefits of digital medical records only be seen in large, integrated health systems?
- Is Physicians for a National Health Program the biggest threat to Obama’s health reform plan?
- The low adoption rate of electronic records
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{ 4 comments }
So much for HL7 and the like, which always struck me as a bridge too far – too much opportunity for proprietary locks. From what we see, GoogleHealth and Microsoft’s HealthVault will become the exchange clearing houses for health information, with new Flex3-like access and management applications that will make learning and using these much simpler and easier.
Chuck Brooks
FutureWare SCG
Sometime, things are better accomplished with us personally doing the job. Well, certainly the adoption of health It has its pros and cons.
I want my private medical affairs to remain an “island of data” not connected to the world outside my doctor’s office. I keep critical emergency info in a card on my wallet.
Having stored electronic data does not mean we have to do away with hard copies as backup files. It can be a reliable source of information. Electronic records are easier to access though.
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