-——many private health care providers have already made the change-——
My medical group made the change years ago and it is working well. They are a national leader in the effort. All the different specialties in the group can and do access the baseline data collected by the primary care doctor.
The hospital was recently added to the ability to accesses and add to the personal record.
I absolutely don’t understand the problem. For me, it is a decided health care edge.
When I lived in Maryland, my doctor (actually a PA) was part of the Johns Hopkins Health System and they moved to an electronic medical records system years ago and I liked it as well.
After they moved to an electronic system, I found it took less time in the waiting room waiting to be seen. My “doc” could easily see what Rx’s were due to be refilled as the EHR system prompted him and when proscribing, he could also link to my insurance company’s drug schedule to see if that particular Rx was covered or if there was a more affordable generic available, even telling me what my co-pay was for any particular Rx. And when he refilled or wrote a new Rx, he sent the Rx electronically to the pharmacy of my choice (I was using Target Pharmacy at the time) and by the time I got there, it had been filled and was waiting for me and I liked that a lot – no taking a handwritten Rx, dropping it off and waiting or coming back later to pick up. And if I had any tests done, either a routine test like a mammogram or for a diagnosis like blood tests, if they were done by a Johns Hopkins provider, the test results were sent, almost instantaneously to the doc and added to my e-record, no waiting for snail mail, no need for someone to transcribe and handwrite into my chart. And if I had needed to be admitted to the hospital, my complete records were on their system as well, no waiting for them to be photocopied and sent.
As stevestras said, “the HiTech Act happened under Bush and I believe, Clinton before him. It was simply signed by Obama”. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) was created by Executive Order in 2004, it was legislatively mandated in the ARRA in 2009.
http://www.hitechanswers.net/about/about-the-hitech-act-of-2009/
As I understand the HiTech Act is “supposed” to provide standards and certifications for EHR systems and ensure those systems are HIPAA compliant to ensure the integrity and privacy of personal health information.
http://www.hitechanswers.net/ehr-incentive-program/hipaa-and-security-compliance/
Now I’m not saying that the HiTech Act accomplishes all their stated goals or that it is Federal (our) money well spent or that health care providers should be compelled to switch to EHR’s or that I necessarily trust the government, but overall I have to say my experiences with EHR’s has been good.
FWIW, I used to work in the third party health insurance enrollment and premium billing and later in COBRA administration and am currently in corporate HR, so I know a bit about HIPAA and how I cannot access any claims information unless the employee signs a limited release, a limited POA to discuss a specific claim for a limited time period, what insurance companies and 3rd party administrators and employers have to do to comply with HIPAA and the electronic transmission of claims data and even demographic data, which IMO is a good thing. HIPAA is cumbersome but also makes it very difficult to obtain personal health information unless one is specifically authorized to do so.
I am an RN. Donna Shalala was the first person back in the late 90’s to put this monstrosity on us, in Home Health Nursing. We went from doing 6 out of an 8 hour day on pt care to doing 6 out of an 8 hour day on filling out paperwork for the govt. Then it was on paper—reams of paper for each admission/visit, etc. I knew then it was the harbinger of things to come. Ran tons of nurses out of home health. Then it moved over to the digital domain, but still the burden was 3/4 computer work, 1/4 patient care. They promised us, it was “just a pilot program” and would soon go away, but we all knew the truth. Now it has infected all of medicine. I now work in a clinic that uses EPIC and the emphasis is on the collection of computer information, not on the patient. It is a monstrosity—I don’t care if some bureaucrat back in our state capitol can access the pt file and find out if has been prescribed narcotics or not. It is a disaster, and why did we not kick and scream back in the Clinton days (yeah, republicans?) and put a stop to it then. Believe me, one-on-one patient care has gone into the toilet.