Posted on 04/11/2016 4:37:24 AM PDT by markomalley
When a patient moves from one health system to another, there’s no guarantee his or her electronic medical records are compatible with the new system’s.
The Department of Health and Human Services wants to change that, with a number of efforts aimed at making electronic health record technology more “interoperable.”
But how does a health system measure “interoperability,” and how does the department know if it’s successful? HHS doesn’t know the answer -- and it’s looking to the public for help.
In a new request for information, HHS is asking for input on metrics that could measure interoperability. The eventual goal, according a recent blog post, is a national system in which “health data flows seamlessly and securely.”
Specifically, HHS wants to know which “populations and elements of information” it should examine, how current data and metrics can be used to assess progress, and what new data and metrics HHS should include when sizing up a health system’s “interoperability” levels.
Currently, HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is considering “nationally representative surveys,” gathered from hospitals and physicians, to assess progress, among other potential solutions, the RFI says.
The 2015 Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act aims to “achieve widespread exchange” of health records nationwide by Dec. 31, 2018, according to the RFI. It also tasks the HHS secretary with establishing metrics by which to measure progress by July 1.
HHS is collecting comment until June 5.
What part of the Constitution addresses this?
I’d say what it means is an overall data architecture among ALL local, state and government agencies with common fields and variables that are cross linked and available to ANY agency, whether that agency is involved in “healthcare” or not.
To my mind this is UNIVERSAL GOVERNMENT INVASION OF PRIVACY.
Yeah, you ought to look into what Google and the cellphone companies are doing with your records as well.
Since Obamacare all medical “caregivers” have had to computerize their patient records.
Now all of our doctors spend a big part of our allotted time of 15 minutes with them paging back and forth trying to find information in old records on the computer and trying to enter new record updates.
I am not joking or exaggerating.
Records don’t communicate. He means all data is stored in a common format and that all systems have read/write access.
Government has no right to mandate this.
“Government has no right to mandate this.”
Just another step on the road to a government administered national health care system.
I agree with the goal. In this age when I go to hospital and they ask what medications I’m taking it should be easily accessible electronically. When I leave the hospital my physician should have all my records during my stay.
My own doctor threw in the towel and retired. (More than 20 years earlier than his father retired.) So not all.
My overall impression is that the mandated Obama electronic records might be great at conveying billing information to the accounting department. They might be good for demonstrating "proof" for the malpractice attorneys that something was done that isn't likely to have been done. But they are a 50 year step backwards as far as conveying to the people taking care of the patient the information about what is actually going on with the patient.
The central socialist Orwellian government continues to invent new phrases and words.
Speaking as a physician, let me say I will be the last doctor in America dictating my notes, placing them in a PAPER chart for a number of reasons, not the least of which is patient confidentiality. Once your records are digital, they are more suseptible to being subject to exposure. In addition, when I see patients who see a lot of practices that are computerized I get a 5 page print out of data even if they were just there for a bunion! All this so they can “document” everything in order to up-code for billing purposes, all the while knowing they never even asked the patient those questions, just repopulated that data from a prior visit or a standard set of data points.
We are not “mandated” to have computer records, YET.... they just reimbuse those of us non-compliant folks at a reduced rate. I find using computer records slows down production and takes away from the patient interaction as it makes data collection the main focus of the visit, not talking to and examining the patient. How many of you go to the doctor, have them punch into a keyboard instead of actually looking at you? That is if you can actually see a physician instead of a second-tier “provider” with less eduaction and training... sorry, didn ‘t mean to get off topic - but that is another slide down the very slippery slope of declining medical care in America.
Agree 100%.
There is no doubt the rules were written by and for the convenience of the government. administrators, pencil pushers and lawyers.
They are an imposition into the Dr.-Patient relationship.
And in our experience they detract rather than add to the quality of care given and received.
Not to mention the cost of computerizing offices and records.
So, my health record could get gonorrhea from some floozie’s health record?
I’m an unemployed former medical transcriptionist, and I wish there were more doctors like you so maybe I’d still have my livelihood. I’m in school now for billing and coding, and I’m not feeling it. I always thought coding and transcription were similar in nature, but they’re not. Coding turns every patient into merely a set of numbers and it’s very dehumanizing. When I was an MT, I felt like I kind of knew the patient by the end of the report. Times have definitely changed, and not necessarily for the better.
Wow! You don't live in Pennsylvania, do you? My doctor of 35 years retired rather than get set up for computerized record, which she said was outrageously expensive. She ran a low-budget operation, and couldn't afford reduced payments either, so she just retired and laid off her nurse and receptionist.
+1000
Are we confident that a Lois Lerner equivalent does not exist in every agency?
Yes, it is expensive.... when we looked at it it would have cost more than 100,000 dollars for our 4 doctor practice and that did not include scanning all the charts we had into the system. It is a nightmare that as far as I can tell adds nothing to real care, but causes nightmares for a lot of us “old schoolers” I have a family practice friend who was an employed physician. He got so depressed during their mandated conversion to computer records he was hospitalized and couldn’t work for 6 months... then went back part time !!
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