The study of health informatics says yes. Even though many doctors and hospitals have long used computerized records for payroll and billing, many have not computerized their health records. One of the first steps in the health informatics revolution is the complete digitilization of health records or the creation of Electronic Health Records (EHR's). This itself has proved to be controversial, as many groups have tried, and failed, to get doctors and nurses, as well as healthcare facilities to embrace technologies. Though many in the industry feel that finally technology has reached the point that it can be feasibly used to meet the demands of the medical profession.
Before examining the impact on the United States, its important to realize the global nature of the e-healthcare situation. E-healthcare works. There is a laundry list of countries, such as Denmark, India, and Thailand, that have instituted electronic infrastructure into their healthcare systems. Denmark has system that pretty much all of its citizens are enrolled in that tracks (electronically) what medications a person is on, when it was prescribed, and by what physician. Remarkebly modern medical facilities in India and Thailand streamline the healthcare process by providing digital records to its doctors, helping to create a high quality, low cost healthcare option.
A recent study suggested that E-heathcare systems are used in less than 1/5th of healthcare facilities in the United States. The technologically most advanced, and innovative country in the history of the world has only 20% of its healthcare facilities running 21st century programs? This is a huge problem. A theoretical study, published by the RAND corporation, suggests that if 90% of the US healthcare facilities began using e-health care, costs would drop by 77 billion dollars per year, or about 6% of the total cost of health care in the United States.
Graph obtained from http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13438006Doctors have often been some of the largest opponents of such a systematic shift. This can be attributed to stuberness, insufficient compensation for learning time for new systems, and unfamiliarity with the new systems. I believe that one of the first steps in modernizing our healthcare systme is the full cooperation of doctors, and something I think will be easier as our generation becomes doctors. As people that grew up with web 2.0 become the leaders in health care, it should face less and less opposition, especially when the recent stimulus packeage is providing a lot of money for this to happen. Ultimately digitizilation of records will reduce costs, save lives, and provide a higher level of care. It needs to happen, and it will very very soon.
I am currently working in the hospitals in La paz and I see patient records being written down on paper and then typed up on a typewriter. To me this is unbelieivable, after being in America where my doctor can simply enter my information on the computer. I am aware that it will take a lot of time and money to record all medical records electronically but I completely agree with you that the health records should be completely electronic. At the time when a doctor is with a patient it might be more convenient to write the records out on paper, but following that it would be very useful to record the patients information electronically. This will provide easier access to all doctors that need the information, in case there is an emergency, such as a car crash. It will also keep the records much more organized which will show that the health care system is more efficient and professional. Personally I wouldmuch rather go to my doctors office where they can immediately look up my records quickly on the computer rather than having to sift through hundreds of other files. Electronic patient records also brings up the issue of patient confidentiality. If the medical records are kept electronically it is important to remember that patient confideniality is most important and those that have access to the patients information should only be those who need to know the information to help make a diagnosis or perscribe medicine.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that the digitalization of health records needs to be a top priority. Billions of dollars are wasted each year by the complete lack of efficiency of our current system (or lack there of!) The amount of time wasted by the sending of medical records and often the need for re-diagnosis costs our system unfathomable amounts of money and reduces the quality of care in general. I thought it was again interesting that other countries have beat us to this technology in terms of healthcare. This seems to be a continuing theme. Many Americans continue to cry out: "Lets do what the other countries do that works for them!" There are many issues that are preventing us from making the transition to this digital system. I would definitely advise you to do a blog posting on privacy concerns within our country. Many of us are especially sensitive about medical issues and would not give the go-ahead if we didn't have close to %100 confidence that the records would successfully remain confidential. I absolutely believe that we need this transition to occur, however, we also need to find a way to secure privacy and prevent medical discrimination.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to have our health records in more advanced technology. It worries me that I could be injured in another country and the doctors could have no way to access my medical records. To also have my information on a computer saved seems more reliable than paper notes in a folder. However, the one thing that worries me is privacy. Today people have the ability to hack onto any website and retrieve information. Medical records are extremely confidential and I could see many people worried about their privacy. As far as doctors being stubborn and not wanting to input all the data, I feel that it takes longer to hand write information than to type information. If a doctor doesn't want to do this maybe they could hire a physicians assistant to follow them around and input all the data. I see a lot of promise with this and it is shocking that only a small percentage of medical facilities take part in this type of record keeping.
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