John Sharp is an IT Manager for a major medical center in Northeast Ohio. Areas of expertise include: ehealth, personal health records, Web 2.0 technologies, social media and project management. He is active in the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society and the American Medical Informatics Association. The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author.
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Posts Tagged ‘EMR’
New EHR Business Model
December 12, 2006
In a report from HealthcareIT News, titled, “Vendor to offer web-based EHRs to docs in exchange for data“, a company called Practice Fusion is announcing an new business model for community physicians. It is a hosted model for EHRs where the company will discount their services and then sell “de-identified data to insurance groups, clinical researchers and pharmaceutical companies.” Can this business model work? Small practices might welcome a lower cost solution, however, they and their patients might be concerned about whether the data is fully deidentified and their privacy protected. Will the host vendor be covered by HIPAA?
Consumer attitudes toward PHR, EHR
December 6, 2006
In a new study release by Price, Waterhouse, Coopers, Top Seven Health Care Trends in ‘07, there an indication of low confidence that EHRs will improve care (34% yes) but a larger group who are undecided or need more information (42%). I don’t agree with the report title in Healthcare IT News which says, “Consumers don’t believe EHRs will improve care, report says”. I think the lesson from the report is the need more information. The failure here is not communicating the importance of EHRs and PHRs and the value they provide to the consumer.
Also in the report is the trends toward “Consumers taking the wheel” (consumer driven health plans success will depend on word of mouth reports) and “Private equity investors will fund the next generation of innovation in services and treatments, challenging larger competitors that lack market agility.” This will be true not only in minute clinics but other new practice venues.
New York Times on Privacy and EHRs
December 4, 2006
In the December 3rd edition of the New York Times, a story titled “Health Hazard: Computers Spilling Your History” examines privacy of electronic medical records. In addition to finding how hospitals can successfully defeat attempts of employees to sneak a peak at medical records of the rich and famous (including President Clinton), the author cites concerns in Congress, e.g., “But the toughest challenge may be a human one: acute public concern about security breaches and identity theft.” This is cited as the major barrier to adoption of EMRs by physicians in the U.S. while other western countries have up to 89% use. One observation of a policy analyst: “If you don’t have the trust of patients, they will withhold information and won’t take advantage of the new system.”
Well said, but much of the task of protecting privacy is proper planning and implementation of systems. One of the biggest threats appears to be health care workers who store patient data on laptops. With all the methods of securing laptops or better yet, accessing centralized systems through secure channels, why should this continue to be a risk.
One note on PHRs: “EVEN without new federal laws to guide them, some companies have begun
to encourage their employees to embrace electronic medical records. At Pitney Bowes, employees are paid a bonus if they store a copy of their personal health records on WebMD.com, the medical Web site.” An encouraging sign and a new way to use incentives.
Harris Interactive Report – Patients Communicating with Doctors Online
September 28, 2006
A 7 page summary of this report by Harris and the Wall Street Journal is now available in PDF format. Although “few patient user or have access to online services for communicating with their doctors, …most would like to.”
More conclusions: 68% think an EMR can reduce “redudant and unnecessary testing” but 62% think that EMRs make it more difficult to ensure privacy. 60% believe EMRs would reduce healthcare costs and 55% believe they would reduce medical errors.
eCleveland Clinic Services include Sharing EMR with Referring Physicians
September 22, 2006
In the Cleveland Plain Dealer today, the DrConnect product is described as opening up the EMR to outside physicians. With the patient’s permission, a referring physician can view the record of that patient in a view only mode. This provides the potential for instant data exchange without the traditional methods of paper or fax. The article also explains the MyChart product from Epic Systems which allows to patient view into the EMR as well. The potential for improved continuity of care and reduction of errors is clearly evident as this kind of data exchange is expanded. The article did not emphasize strongly enough the security behind these ehealth products which is necessary to reassure the public.
David Brailer’s Op-Ed in the New York Times
September 21, 2006
On September 19th, the NY Times published a piece by Dr. David Brailer on EMR and PHRs. In discussing current legislation on EMRs, he says, “These rules help doctors improve care, and at the same time push health information portability into the mainstream.” The difference in House and Senate bills are highlighted by a difference of opinion on portability: “Congress must confront as it tries to reconcile the competing versions of the bill: opposition to portable health information is, by definition, support for proprietary health information.” He cites the imporatance of portability as a do no harm issue – that is, that a vote against portability is harmful.
Couldn’t agree more with this and also his admission that getting there is costly and requires a significant commitment.
