HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a press opportunity today with David Blumental, National Coordinator for Health Information technology and Mary Wakefield, Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration regarding a $31 million dollar grant program which is part of a $1.3 Billion dollar government program to make medical records available on Electronic Networks which will make Healthcare more efficient presumably and more cost effective. A healthcare facility in Mississippi will be one of the immediate recipients; which is still trying to pull themselves out of the effects of health records lost during Hurricaine Katrina.
A giant central gathering place for Health Records, the like of the Veterans Administration, Medicare or Medicaid may be in the offing. The three year plan is intended to make it easier for Doctors to not duplicate services, find prescription information for people affected by moving, natural disasters or other catastrophies.
Making the system optional…..seems to be of a prime concern. If the Obama Administration makes Electronic Medical Records as an option and does not pay for it…..there is a question…as to who might want to participate unless they can see immediate cost savings. The rub seems to be the sensitive information that could be accessed regarding drug addictions, mental illness, abortion procedures, sexual disease and a variety of social infections and personal information that might affect insurance rates.
The Law of Unintended Consequences seems to have been briefly addressed by the Administration….saying David Blumenthal: that “Placing your records on Electroncic Medical Record Databases will be purely optional and not required…by anyone.”
So, who might want to make this Central Electronic Gathering system work? The Drug Companies, The Hospitals, The Doctors and the Insurance Companies. Looks like it might be a done deal… doesn’t it?
Sorry Winship’s, this is for Terry Crowley site master,
I can’t stand the new format! The color is waaaay too bright, it hurts the eyes! Bring back post numbering, it makes it easier to reply. Just my two-cents.
*Anonster….hey,
progress….you can’t do with it and you can’t do without it!
I do not know how else you get rid of all the duplicate testing and cut down the errors in prescribing due to not knowing what another doctor did or prescribed.
Protecting for privacy must be an element in what limited form that exists today anyway.
#1
Not that I think anything you say has ANY validity AT ALL… and the site owner has heard my TWO CENTS at bending knee to a leftist radical like you… but i’m working on the changes.
lol
The new color is a little bright, but IT does make one want to go by some ORANGE JUICE !!!
I kinda dig the new style, a bit tough to navigate, The Sites first objective should be fast , friendly access, that will bring more readers and increase ad revenue…….I digress.
1/3 of medical costs can be traced to “records” remove this phony curtain and the machine will be exposed.
my family doctor, who I’ve seen for twenty years recently updated his facility with three servers and over 100 dell PC’s.
He explained that this investement was equeal to SIX WEEKS costs under the old system, but because not everyone is online, they’ll continue to run both until the old (anti tech) people die and they progress can be made.
“People still walked and rode horses for years after the introduction of the automobile” he explained.
Database Information Gathering Systems since the early days of Oracle could accomplish automated ONLINE Access without any problems. The Security issue and those that can access that information will be the ongoing problem. If we can’t defend against Romanians with a 286 machine…how will anyone know for sure that their info is safe?
who should have control over your medical records?