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Greetings!
As part of the stimulus package, $20 billion will be used to accelerate the use of electronic health records. Presumably, all of our health records would be linked together for easy access by all the patient's health care providers. With every person's doctors having access to the patient's complete medical file, this system would likely improve the quality of care and reduce the costs of cumbersome paper records.
The idea is, of course, well overdue. All of us have had the experience of one doctor not knowing what the others are doing! So, what's the delay? Critics fear that in spite of privacy laws to protect the public that there is major potential for abuse. For example, employers might inappropriately obtain the medical records of a job candidate and determine that they are too expensive to insure.
On the other hand, too many administrative burdens would impede the use of electronic records and interfere with the coordination of care.
For the sake of all of us, let's hope that Congress can balance these concerns for the sake of consumers of health care services. |
