Not at all ST. Young doctors have a problem with it too. Once again this is a great theoretical idea to people not in healthcare. Nut talk to Andes doctors and a few nurses and you will see how bad of an idea this will be in practice.

Having nonmedical people impose a healthcare solution on doctors is just as bad as Obama and his leftwing academics impose economic and tax policy on the business world. When you have people without practical knowledge of a situation making policies that will be imposed on the people in the field, then it's highly unlikely you will ever get a good outcome.

Quote from: quiller on October 17, 2010, 09:20:47 AM
Joe the Plumber ring any bells about privacy of records, when Democrats are involved?

It is a bad idea to put this data on-line. Safeguards are meaningless.

There are always one or two back door into everything.   >:D

Quote from: walkstall on October 17, 2010, 09:27:36 AM
There are always one or two back door into everything.   >:D

And there is a lot more than a couple of ways when you put everyone's records on a standardized format and then store it as part of a national database.

I tend to agree with both sides of the issue.
For example, as a disabled vet, my stay in the waiting room has been cut by more than two hours, what used to be an all day event, is now done in an hour.
Yes, I actually get to spend as much time as I need with my doctor, all thanks to electronic files.

Now on the other hand, as a Gov entity, I have no say over how my records are kept, which is an argument against socialist medicine.
A person should have the right to choose a doctor that refuses to electronically file his patients records.
This way it makes it much easier to trace who is responsible for leaking information about a specific person.

There is no fool proof method of safe keeping records, only the ethics of the people in charge of such info.
but one upside to electronic records, is there is always a record tracing back to the person that accessed them.

Quote from: Solar on October 17, 2010, 09:34:50 AM
I tend to agree with both sides of the issue.
For example, as a disabled vet, my stay in the waiting room has been cut by more than two hours, what used to be an all day event, is now done in an hour.
Yes, I actually get to spend as much time as I need with my doctor, all thanks to electronic files.

Now on the other hand, as a Gov entity, I have no say over how my records are kept, which is an argument against socialist medicine.
A person should have the right to choose a doctor that refuses to electronically file his patients records.
This way it makes it much easier to trace who is responsible for leaking information about a specific person.

There is no fool proof method of safe keeping records, only the ethics of the people in charge of such info.
but one upside to electronic records, is there is always a record tracing back to the person that accessed them.

Hmmm...What good is that when the cat is out of the bag. :o

Quote from: Dan on October 17, 2010, 09:20:55 AM
Not at all ST. Young doctors have a problem with it too. Once again this is a great theoretical idea to people not in healthcare. Nut talk to Andes doctors and a few nurses and you will see how bad of an idea this will be in practice.

Since you have obviously spoken to various doctors about this I will have to question  mine next time I am in.  Maybe they just put up a good show for me when I am there... :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\

Solar, if you are talking about the VA then I hope you will appreciate that it works very differently than private practice medicine. There a doctor has to justify the time he spends with you and doesn't get paid for reviewing your records before you guys meet. It just doesn't work that way chief. ;)

Quote from: Dan on October 17, 2010, 09:41:51 AM
Solar, if you are talking about the VA then I hope you will appreciate that it works very differently than private practice medicine. There a doctor has to justify the time he spends with you and doesn't get paid for reviewing your records before you guys meet. It just doesn't work that way chief. ;)

To the contrary, the VA doctor has to do the same.
I don't get your point?

Solar, the VA in Ann Arbor regularly featured a string of doctors who would ask me what was wrong, but never once opened the actual file. They are on a 15-minute-per-patient limit.

At various clinics, the file WOULD get opened, where someone wouldf find my last visit had not even been recorded, or tests run but no resul;ts entered (weeks after my last visit).

I cannot stress this enough. You do NOT want a VA-style health mismanagement program. You do NOT want anyone to just walk into an unoccupied office and call up a file, print is "spicy bits" for their use, and then walk out without ever signing in under their own password. There are no controls on access. There are no reparations possible trying to track down a culprit in such a large setting.

Quote from: quiller on October 17, 2010, 09:53:21 AM
Solar, the VA in Ann Arbor regularly featured a string of doctors who would ask me what was wrong, but never once opened the actual file. They are on a 15-minute-per-patient limit.

At various clinics, the file WOULD get opened, where someone wouldf find my last visit had not even been recorded, or tests run but no resul;ts entered (weeks after my last visit).

I cannot stress this enough. You do NOT want a VA-style health mismanagement program. You do NOT want anyone to just walk into an unoccupied office and call up a file, print is "spicy bits" for their use, and then walk out without ever signing in under their own password. There are no controls on access. There are no reparations possible trying to track down a culprit in such a large setting.

So you are saying they have no controls on access, or automatic log-offs, or that these people are dumb enough to just leave a computer up and logged on....WOW. :o :o :o :o

Do you leave your laptop up and out for people to just walk up and use?? :o

If you look at health insurance with Blue Cross or Cigna or United then the doctor will bill your insurance provider when he sees you. He will bill for a level 1 visit if he just sees you for 5 minutes. He will bill for a level 3 visit if he sees you for 15 minutes. If he sees you for an hour then he will bill a level 5 visit. For each type of visit he has to justify the medical necessity of billing that level. Levels 1-3 are simple. Level 4 or 5 visits require detailed justification and come under lots of scrutiny in post payment reviews. So your doc can't just see you for an hour just because. There either has to be a very specific issue or the doc will be unable to bill for much of the time he saw you. If the doctor does the later, then he will have trouble paying his own bills and making payroll.

And medical records are neither part of the delay or the reason he can bill firths time. Most doctors document the visit as they talk to you. And most dogs keep your prior records in a great big folder that can be reviewed in moments. There really isn't any added efficiency in time for the doctors. Quite the contrary. Ask taxed if you don't believe me. He talked tonsils people who were trying to set up a business doing the extra work for th doctors. Keyword being extra.

I was acquainted with a woman who use to transcribe all of our background investigation reports for the Sheriff recruiting office I worked in.  She would take the tapes home (with all the juicy details) type them up and return the hard copy reports to the investigators. 

In talking to her I found out she also had the contract for Kaiser Hospital - Typing up the doctors notes....  She, her husband, or anyone snooping around her house could have taken this information just as easily as you are suggesting they could at my doctors office......  Where obviously only idiots work.

Bottom line is if someone wants it bad enough they will get it. :o :o :o

Quote from: quiller on October 17, 2010, 09:53:21 AM
Solar, the VA in Ann Arbor regularly featured a string of doctors who would ask me what was wrong, but never once opened the actual file. They are on a 15-minute-per-patient limit.

At various clinics, the file WOULD get opened, where someone wouldf find my last visit had not even been recorded, or tests run but no resul;ts entered (weeks after my last visit).

I cannot stress this enough. You do NOT want a VA-style health mismanagement program. You do NOT want anyone to just walk into an unoccupied office and call up a file, print is "spicy bits" for their use, and then walk out without ever signing in under their own password. There are no controls on access. There are no reparations possible trying to track down a culprit in such a large setting.

Then your VA hospital needs to be closed immediately due to incompetence!
Not sure when the last time you visited, but I have been to three different VA hospitals in the last 5 years, two in Ca and one in Nevada, and the only person allowed to view my records at any given time, is the doctor, he has to log on with a pass code, that only he has, and when he is done he logs off.
Granted, there are office people that have access, but they too have a password, and if there are any discrepancies as to an invasion of my privacy, an investigation will reveal the person that accessed my records, including the doctor.

Like I said, there are good and bad about electronic records, the one bad thing, and I hope they pass legislation over it, is the length of time a history can be viewed.
Say a doctor wants to go back 5 years or more, he will need your personal permission to view them, as in a retinal scan or a finger print, this would assure your history stays private.

But as it stands, if you have a paper record on file with a doctors office, there is no way to trace back to the person that opened your records and photo copied them.

Cost was closely followed by Training Staff on EMR systems, which 79 percent of physicians are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about. Lowest on the list of concerns was "Loss of patient information."

Despite cost and staff training concerns, a narrow majority of the physicians surveyed believe EMR systems will prove to be a valuable resource in medical practices. Over 58 percent of the physicians surveyed responded that EMR systems will have a positive or very positive impact on the quality of patient care.

http://insurancenewsnet.com/article.aspx?id=226700&type=newswires

Thought I would go looking around...ST