I think the electronic records one is absolutely vital. It would seem REMARKABLY easy to have a central data repository where medical records are kept and updated, which the patient can make accessible to any medical practioner they choose “on demand”… and one would think that would save a lot of time and lead to better outcomes. Beyond remarkably easy, in fact.

I’m not sure all the reasons this hasn’t happened yet, but the struggle I’ve seen some people go through in order to see their OWN medical records gives me a hint on what one of the problems is…

According to my brother who is a systems consultant to some large healthcare providers there are several obstacles to electronic health records.

- lack of standard systems and file formats
- lack of full adoption of electronic records in hospitals and doctors offices
- back log of work – doctors sometimes take weeks/months to dictate and put documentation in a patient’s file

In order to drive the necessary change patients must be proactive in pressing for their own information and in electronic format.

As an example – I just followed the course of my father’s complicated blood disorder. He had blood draws several times per week and each time we would have to call the doctor’s office and ask for a FAX of of the printed results. It was like the dark ages. It seems to me they could have had some simple download format from a secure website. Looking at these blood readings in a trended format is key to analyzing the data and understanding the patients progress. But even the doctors don’t have the data in a trended format -or at least we were never shown anything in that format. On top of that different labs present the data in different formats and different order for the same basic blood test.

This is just an example but what would seem to be a relatively straightforward data set. As the patient, it would be nice to have a file with the information fromt he blood work over the 5 year course of the disease that could be easily accessible by the patient and any new specialist he might want to consult. Instead, there is an onerous process of obtaining paper copies of records to be sent to any consulting doctor. Its crazy in this day and age of technology that some sort of database hasn’t been developed and healthcare consumers aren’t pushing doctor’s and hospitals to use it.

[...] global healthcare Earlier in the year I blogged about the true costs of healthcare and the role technology and the Web 2.0 might play in reducing those costs. But maybe we should [...]

[...] Earlier in the year I blogged about the true costs of healthcare and the role technology and the Web 2.0 might play in reducing those costs. But maybe we should [...]