From the Wall Street Journal Blog of November 29, 2007, 9:06 am
Poll: Electronic Med Records Are Worth the Privacy Risk
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
On the subject of electronic medical records, regular folks appear to agree with the health-wonk elite.
Yes, electronic records make it tougher to keep patients’ records private, most people said in a new poll from the WSJ Online and Harris Interactive. But the risk is worth it, because the records can also decrease errors and reduce health costs, according to a majority of respondents.
Overall, 60% of 2,153 respondents said the benefits of electronic medical records outweigh the risks; 63% said electronic records can significantly decrease the frequency of medical errors, 55% said they can significantly reduce costs, and 51% said they make it more difficult to ensure patients’ privacy.
A couple other interesting findings: 76% of respondents are confident that the doctor always “has an accurate and complete picture” of their prior medical history (we suspect a survey of docs would yield a less confident response to this one). And only 1% of respondents said they use a personal health record stored on the Internet — demonstrating that there’s plenty of room for growth in the ambitious personal-health Microsoft and Google are working on.
Health Blog Question of the Day: Do the benefits of electronic medical records outweigh the privacy risk? If so, what can be done to get more doctors to go electronic?
Showing posts with label health records. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health records. Show all posts
Monday, May 12, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Will Pan Canadian standards for our electronic health records leave Canadian snow birds out in the cold?
Industry leaders from Canada Health Infoway (Infoway), Canadian Healthcare Information Technology Trade Association (CHITTA, the Health Division of Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC)), and the Association of Health Technology Industry (AITS) have formed a task force to accelerate and promote the transition to a new set of pan-Canadian health information technology standards – intended to accelerate electronic health records in Canada.
What?
The task force will collaboratively work to promote the adoption of pan-Canadian standards, especially with point of service systems, by engaging clinicians, health care providers and vendors. Involving these stakeholders will support the planning required to ensure the interoperable electronic health record (iEHR) is leveraged and the adoption of pan-Canadian standards is accelerated.
So . . . On the one hand: Infoway and partners have formed a task force with a mandate for a new set of pan-Canadian health information technology standards. But why just “pan-Canadian”? It sounds like future Snow Birds could be left out in the cold when they need care during their winter sojourns in warmer climates. They will be able to get their money but with their Canadian standards may not be able to get their blood type. (Is it A negative or O negative?)
On the other hand: Infoway acknowledges that Microsoft and Google will be offering (with considerable clout) personal health records to Canadian consumers. See Infoway has personal health record concerns from HealthEdition.com
Our inventive IT industries [most of them multi-nationals] will hopefully carry the day and ensure a global standard that also works for Canadians. Maybe a "Panstandard?"
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Impact of the Electronic Health Record on Patient Safety: An Alberta Perspective
by Patrick Binns
Alberta is at the leading edge in developing its electronic health record (EHR), a provincial initiative to provide healthcare providers with immediate access to a patient's medication history and laboratory test results, regardless of where they are in the province, or where the patient's drugs or other treatments were ordered. The Alberta EHR was launched in October 2003. So far 6,000 healthcare providers have voluntarily signed on to use it, and benefits to patient safety have been reported. The EHR is an important part of healthcare renewal that is required to improve patient safety. Read the whole article by clicking here.
Alberta is at the leading edge in developing its electronic health record (EHR), a provincial initiative to provide healthcare providers with immediate access to a patient's medication history and laboratory test results, regardless of where they are in the province, or where the patient's drugs or other treatments were ordered. The Alberta EHR was launched in October 2003. So far 6,000 healthcare providers have voluntarily signed on to use it, and benefits to patient safety have been reported. The EHR is an important part of healthcare renewal that is required to improve patient safety. Read the whole article by clicking here.
Wal-Mart partners with hospitals to rapidly expand in-store clinics
Analysts say the giant retailer wants the good will a trusted hospital name can provide. Hospitals, meanwhile, say they don't intend to compete with physicians.
By Pamela Lewis Dolan, AMNews staff. Feb. 25, 2008.
As big-name national retailers and pharmacy chains continue to open in-store clinics, a familiar face soon may enter the fray as well -- your local hospital.
Wal-Mart recently announced plans to partner with community hospitals across the country to open up 400 new retail clinics inside its stores by 2010, in addition to the 55 it already houses. Thirteen of those are owned and operated by hospital systems.
The rebranded "Clinic at Wal-Mart" also will sport the name of the partnering health system providing the nurse practitioners and physician assistants dispensing care, as well as the doctors overseeing them. But Wal-Mart would standardize the clinics so they have a similar look and feel, such as having each clinic post a price list and keep similar hours.
To continue reading this report please click here.
Friday, April 18, 2008
A First Comparison of Google Health and MS HealthVault
[Posted (on his own blog) by Vince Kuraitis on March 2, 2008. Intro only. To see the complete entry click on the title above.]
While details are thin, here’s a first pass at comparing and contrasting Google Health (GH) and Microsoft HealthVault (HV). Overall, there are many common features, some differences, and many common challenges between these two platforms.
A High Level Comparison
Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault
Personal Health Information (PHI) Platforms
There’s still not much information available about the specifics of GH, although they did release sketchy information on the Official Google Blog
Commonalities
Both are patient controlled — data is released only with patient permission.
For more, click here.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Google vs. Wal-Mart in Electronic Health Record Battle for Consumers
The most powerful consumer Internet company in the world and the world's most powerful consumer retailer seek to control consumer WEB access to the powerful health care industry.
Microsoft vs. Google for consumer health care dominance is the typical battle cry.
Nevertheless, in the fight to “consumerize” health care via technology, major U.S. employers are powerful stakeholders in their own rights, as they battle to control medical insurance costs for their workers on a daily basis.
How about Dr. Google vs. Dr. Wal-Mart? Click on the title and read on . . .
Canada Takes a Closer Look at Personal Health Records
Microsoft, Wal-Mart and Google have been actively developing this technology. In February, 2008, Google launched a pilot with a medical institution committed to giving patients access to their own medical records: The Cleveland Clinic. A large academic medical center, Cleveland is one of the first partners to integrate on the Google platform.
For more on the Google initiatives see:
Google Conversations about Health & Records
A pilot with the Cleveland Clinic for health information access
Warning on Storage of Health Records. The New York Times Comments on Article from The New England Journal of Medicine
by STEVE LOHR
For the full article click on the title of this blog entry.
In an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, two leading researchers warn that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of patient records.
The authors, Dr. Kenneth D. Mandl and Dr. Isaac S. Kohane, are longtime proponents of the benefits of electronic patient records to improve care and help individuals make smarter health decisions.
But their concern, stated in the article published Wednesday and in an interview, is that the medical profession and policy makers have not begun to grapple with the implications of companies like Microsoft and Google becoming the hosts for vast stores of patient information.
The arrival of these new corporate entrants, the authors write, promises to bring “a seismic change” in the control and stewardship of patient information.
Today, most patient records remain within the health system — in doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics, health maintenance organizations and pharmacy networks. Federal regulations govern how personal information can be shared among health institutions and insurers, and the rules restrict how such information can be mined for medical research. One requirement is that researchers have no access to individual patients’ identities.
For the full article click on the title of this blog entry.
Google Conversations about Health & Records
A pilot with the Cleveland Clinic for health information access
2/21/2008 07:46:00 AM
I suffer from poor eyesight and intense seasonal allergies, but I'm thankful that health issues occupy just a small portion of my life. Even though I'm rather healthy, I sometimes find myself needing access to accurate health information. I can get a long way by searching for health facts online, but I also need to incorporate what I find with my own history of conditions and treatments. I didn't even realize I had allergies until my early twenties -- for more years than I care to admit, I'd forget that the "cold" I came down with in April was suspiciously similar to the one I had at exactly the same time the year before. I've often been overwhelmed when trying to determine or track a condition, because my personal record of health information is either nonexistent, or it's spread on forms and receipts from (at least) a dozen doctors and five insurance companies.
Working as an engineer here on the health team, I've been excited to participate in building tools that will help me and others manage our personal health information more effectively. Many innovators in the healthcare industry have worked hard to make results of doctor visits, prescriptions, tests and procedures available digitally. By using the GData protocol already offered in many Google products, and supporting standards-based medical information formats like the Continuity of Care Record (CCR), our health efforts will help you access, store and communicate your health information. Above all, health data will remain yours -- private and confidential. Only you have control over when to share it with family members and health providers.
This week, we hit another important milestone. We launched a pilot with a medical institution committed to giving patients access to their own medical records: The Cleveland Clinic. A large academic medical center, Cleveland is one of the first partners to integrate on our platform. Because of their size and reach with patients who already have access to their medical records online, Cleveland has been a great partner for us to test out our data sharing model. Patients participating in the Cleveland pilot give authorization via our AuthSub interface to have their electronic medical records safely and securely imported into a Google account. It's great to see our product getting into the hands of end users, and I look forward to the feedback that the Cleveland patients will provide us.
Cleveland is just the first of many healthcare providers that will securely send medical records and information via Google APIs at your request. We've been hard at work collaborating with a number of insurance plans, medical groups, pharmacies and hospitals. While this pilot is open initially to just a few thousand patients, I see it as an important first step to show how Google can help users get access to their medical records and take charge of their health information.
Links to this post
Monday, March 10, 2008
What is the Alberta Netcare EHR?
The Alberta Netcare EHR is a secure lifetime record of an Albertan's key health information available for consultation by authorized health service providers. It is not a patient's full health or medical record.
Today, many physicians, pharmacists and other health service providers are recording information about their patients electronically, rather than in paper files. This information may be stored in a local electronic medical record or in a clinical information system. Labs, pharmacies, diagnostic services and community clinics are also capturing and storing information electronically.
Alberta Netcare EHR captures several key data elements from these clinical records for inclusion in a patient's provincial electronic health record. The information elements that are part of the Alberta Netcare EHR include:
- personal demographic information that helps to uniquely identify each patient
- prescribed dispensed drugs
- known allergies and intolerances
- immunizations
- laboratory test results
- diagnostic imaging reports
- other medical reports
The information available for access by an Alberta Netcare EHR Portal authorized health service provider varies according to the access permissions assigned to that provider.
Alberta Netcare EHR Portal also offers authorized health service providers several decision support tools including:
- drug-to-drug and drug-to-allergy interaction alerts to avoid prescriptions that conflict
- a database of all available drugs and their common dosages
- links to information support such as Clinical Guidelines from the Alberta Medical Association.
Contents of the EHR are maintained and updated in two ways:
- Primarily, information is automatically accessed and captured from the existing electronic data systems of pharmacies, labs, regional clinics and diagnostic services. This means that this information is not re-keyed or re-entered by anyone, it is gathered from source systems. Our partners in this process include all the health regions and the Alberta Cancer Board.
- Additionally, some information can be entered directly into a record by an Alberta Netcare authorized health service provider.
Benefits of the Alberta Netcare EHR
a) For Patients
The Alberta Netcare EHR improves the quality and safety of patient care by:
- Providing more accurate and up-to-date medical information about a patient.
- Presenting this information immediately at the point of care which reduces delays in treatment, helps to ensure the most appropriate treatment decisions are made, and improves health outcomes.
- Reducing the possibility of medical error by improving the completeness, accuracy and clarity of medical records accessed at the point of care.
- Streamlining the secure sharing of health information between health service providers to improve the quality of patient care.
- Giving authorized health service providers a common understanding of a patient's health condition, preventing unnecessary treatments and adverse events, such as harmful prescription drug interactions.
- Reducing unnecessary duplication of tests, such as lab work.
b) For Authorized Health Service Providers
The Alberta Netcare EHR provides access to available information at the point of care. It gives health service providers access to key patient information along with online decision support and reference tools. It also helps reduce the possibility of medical errors, assists with compliance issues, and decreases the potential for adverse drug reactions. Features like lab value trends and drug monographs also help with patient consultations.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Will Google Enable Your Health Record?
We understand that Canada Health Infoway is "talking" to Google. We will follow this. For starters here's a primer from Google's own blog. . . posted 11/30/2006 12:59:00 PM
At Google, we often get questions about what we're doing in the area of health. I have been interested in the issues of health care and health information for a while. It is now one of my main focuses here, and I've decided to start posting about it. I've been motivated in this field in part by my personal experiences helping to care for my mother, who recently died from cancer after a four-year battle. While the quality of the medical care my mother received was extraordinary, I saw firsthand how challenged the health care system was in supporting caregivers and communicating between different medical organizations. The system didn't fail completely, but struggled with these phases:
- What was wrong -- it took her doctors nine months to correctly identify an illness which had classic symptoms
- Who should treat her -- there was no easy way to figure out who were the best local physicians and caregivers, which ones were covered by her insurance, and how we could get them to agree to treat her
- Once she was treated, she had a chronic illness, and needed ongoing care and coordinated nursing and monitoring, particularly once her illness recurred
In the end, one key part of the solution to these problems . . . for more click here:
Health care information matters
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