In this
article in the New York Times the author Walecia Konrad brings up the fact that Obama has put forth a plan to spend 19 billion dollars on electronic medical records. The appeal of having electronic medical records is seamless communication, which would "improve the quality of health care and help reduce dangerous medical errors. And by improving the efficiency of medicine, it might also help curb the nations skyrocketing health care costs." The article states that the intentions are all good, but it will be a while before this idea is able to be fully integrated. If your medical care provider doesn't already provide you with an electronic medical record of yourself, which chances are they don't since only 9% of hospitals, then you are on your own in making it. The author says when he tested out four online health record medical files, Google Health Records, Microsoft Healthvault, RevolutionHealth Health Record, and WebMd Personal Health Record, it proved to be challenging. In order to complete it you would have to do a lot of research and digging in your physicians filing cabinet. Later in the article it also states that personal files done by the patient can be dangerous for doctors to use because their could be errors and omissions.
With news of the presidents plan, Google and Microsoft have been working on becoming the leaders in the technology, "but progress is being slowed by incompatible technologies, privacy concerns and resistance by many health care providers to installing expensive electronic systems.
I feel that the principles behind the technology are all good and I definitely see the large potential benefit, but in order for this to work properly it will require full cooperation on the part of the patient and medical facilities. It would definitely be great if they could just type in some ones name in the system and get all their past medical history, especially if the person is unconscious or unable to give the proper information needed. For me though, I will sit back and wait until my medical providers take the initiative.
it does seem that public agencies (including hospitals and doctors' offices) are slow to change record-keeping technology. i am puzzled by this, but it does seem to be the case. perhaps the cost of computers and software delays changes -- although a mandate from the federal government might mean there's money for doctors to start electronic record keeping. patients keeping track of their own health records seems tricky, as you note in your post. patients aren't always the most reliable. remember one of the articles we read at the beginning of the semester that made a strong argument that patients' stories are not even worth considering because of the many factors that contribute to misreporting events?
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