There’s a big difference between doctors electronically sending a prescription to a pharmacist, and having all your records held by the federal government.
However, security is a problem with emailing any medical information. On today’s wide-open internet, where electronically transmitted credit card information is not secure unless encrypted, medical information is not secure either. Both parties transmitting medical data have to employ the same encryption protocol and while that exists within medical facilities, there’s no standard for transmission inter-facility. Your doctor and pharmacist need to be electronically using the same protocol to transmit prescriptions via email. That’s why faxes are popular with medical facilities: they’re harder for strangers to break into.
The VA already has moved to electronic MR and it works well. My HMO has it as well and I’m pleased with it. However if the system is down they have no way to print out or transmit data manually. If your computer is down it’s not going to print out some paper for you.
However if the system is down they have no way to print out or transmit data manually. If your computer is down it’s not going to print out some paper for you.
No, if the computer is down it won’t print out anything. When that happened at my hospital they broke out pens and paper forms.