Health IT is about to receive a $20 billion infusion from the Federal government.
Aside from the fact that the current generation of electronic records may not be ready for widespread use, there are questions as to whether privacy laws will impede the spread.
In general, doctors adopt the path of least resistance. Throwing in added steps, like filling out additional forms or requiring pre-authorization phone calls, will ensure a quick end to any initiative meant to alter physician behavior.
Balancing patient privacy with ease of digital record adoption is tricky. On one hand, it is true that these records may not protect patient information as securely as one would like. On the other, excessive safeguards will hinder patient care, which is a supposed strength of electronic systems.
For instance, consider the proposed onerous requirement of having patients sign consent forms prior to disclosing health information for the purpose of treatment. Conceivably this could “could cripple efforts to manage chronic diseases like diabetes, which often require coordination of care among many specialists.”
Protecting patient privacy is important. Going overboard, only to handicap coordination of patient care, is a threat that bureaucrats face when encouraging the widespread implementation health IT.
Related posts:
- "The greatest impediment to the adoption of electronic health records is privacy"
- Another obstacle to electronic prescribing
- Op-ed: Why doctors still balk at electronic medical records
- Electronic records and economic sense
- Pie in the sky and electronic records
- Medical students who are used to electronic records
- The low adoption rate of electronic records
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Balancing patient privacy with ease of digital record adoption is tricky. On one hand, it is true that these records may not protect patient information as securely as one would like.
Have doctors ever heard of encryption or access control? With a properly implemented access control, the electronic records an be no less secure than paper records. Amazon.com, for example, as well as most other online merchants as well as banks protect our credit card information more effectively than stores protect their paper records.
Yes, in a medical office many people may need access records. This is what user roles are for. All the technology is there. If a hospital orders a custom-made system and then refuses to pay for the proper security implementation – I heard that from a person who works on medical information systems, it’s not the fault of technology, it’s the fault of a hospital.
It is not privacy laws that are a barrier. HIPPA pretty much settled that. It is the real ethical obligations of doctors and the real viable concerns of patients.
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