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You know, one of the government agencies getting access to health records is the Office of Personnel Management. Very surprised the government employee unions aren't screaming about it.
It's not better or worse, it's the same waste of time and money that is meant to distract the voters into thinking someone is doing something. Republicans jumped onto the idea at the same time. Gingrich has been touting the savings of EMR since the Contract With America. And before that, the right wing and their I-270 tech corridor cronies were all about trying to force that never ending racketeering scheme down everyone's throats.
Huge windfall for the tech sector. It's like extended hostilities for defense spending and the corporate defense cronies. Because as I've said, these systems are never really "up & running" or anything....they're perpetually "in progress" and require oodles of consulting, new hardware, new licenses, approved add-ons, new development, etc etc. Add in the lovely factor that every year the federal government updates/changes all the medical industry compliance regulations, which means every year your absurdly complex and oversized EMR system requires patching by approved consultants, and this is a bigger corporate welfare giveaway than even Big Agriculture and Big Pharma are familiar with.
Agree 100%. EMR/EHR does not save time. You spend as much time, just on different things. There are a few time saving features, such as escripting prescriptions. We call in far fewer now that the docs can do that. You can print out a physical exam form with all the information on it instead of hand writing it. That's good. But it takes soooo much time to enter data sometimes. And then there are computer issues.
Most large ERPs are Faustian bargains on the best day, because your data ends up hostage to a specific vendor, and ending that relationship ends up being the equivalent of yanking a few fishhooks out of your eyelids. So this version of Oracle/SQL Server is no longer supported, and that version of Epic is no longer supported, and this add-on replaces that add-on, and that box is no longer supported hardware for the new indexing system, and that OS version isn't a supported OS for the DB, and no, you can't use ODBC to migrate the data to your own internal system, and no, you cannot use your own reporting tools, and oh by the way, your license is due to expire, and we no longer do a la carte and require a bundling, and etc etc etc.
And the rosy scenario above assumes you have an IT staff, at least on an ad hoc contract basis.
All so not much changes for doctors, nurses, patients, or the medical admin staff. What's not to love?
I assume you only pay cash for everything you buy?
I have no problem with information being used to improve healthcare in this country.
It all flew right over your head.
The point is that we were told digitizing our health care records was supposed to be used for X, and that's it, and then government decides after the fact, after we agreed to digital records, that they want to own our health care records and share them with everyone and anyone they see fit.
It's called a bait and switch, it's a fraud. It's a federal offense if a private corporation were to do it. But if the federal government does it, lemmings like you are oblivious to it, and even approving of it.
Agree 100%. EMR/EHR does not save time. You spend as much time, just on different things. There are a few time saving features, such as escripting prescriptions. We call in far fewer now that the docs can do that. You can print out a physical exam form with all the information on it instead of hand writing it. That's good. But it takes soooo much time to enter data sometimes. And then there are computer issues.
Our medical group started using eClinicalWorks about 4 years ago, one of the few good EMR's. And for me it saves time, and it also helps make me more money. Not rich, but a good enough amount to keep taking on Medicare patients, and staying in business. But I am the exception, maybe because I have used Dragon dictation for so long. Most docs don't seem to do so well.
Our medical group started using eClinicalWorks about 4 years ago, one of the few good EMR's. And for me it saves time, and it also helps make me more money. Not rich, but a good enough amount to keep taking on Medicare patients, and staying in business. But I am the exception, maybe because I have used Dragon dictation for so long. Most docs don't seem to do so well.
In our system (Office Practicum) for example, when a patient enters the waiting room his/her "status" is clicked, ie, "waiting room". Then we are supposed to click "triage" when we bring him/her back, then 2-3 other statuses before we even click "MD waiting" which means the patient is ready for the MD. Likewise, when the dr. orders vaccines, s/he clicks "nurse shots" and then we have to click "nurse finished" when we're done. It all seems a little unnecessary and a big waste of time.
In our system (Office Practicum) for example, when a patient enters the waiting room his/her "status" is clicked, ie, "waiting room". Then we are supposed to click "triage" when we bring him/her back, then 2-3 other statuses before we even click "MD waiting" which means the patient is ready for the MD. Likewise, when the dr. orders vaccines, s/he clicks "nurse shots" and then we have to click "nurse finished" when we're done. It all seems a little unnecessary and a big waste of time.
Our system tells me when the patient is ready to be seen and in what room. In my small office of maybe 1000 sq feet and 2 exam rooms, this isn't really needed. I can see and hear! But it makes it easier for me to post on forums like this during office hours! <LOL>
Remember when she said the purpose was for patient records to be easily moved from doctor to doctor when people moved or changed doctors and for people to look at their own medical records? It was when she decided to run for President in 2007. She mentioned it all over the campaign trail. She and Bill Frist (R) sold it that way. Remember how "electronic medical records" was sneaked it into the stimulus bill "which came out in 2009" (and not the Affordable Care Act -Obamacare) because that's how Tom Daschle (took his name out of contention for head of Health and Human Sevices when it was discovered he was one in a long line of Obama potential appointee tax cheats) said to sneak it in, in his book on Universal Health Care?
Some background:
From 2007
"Electronic medical records are the answer to improving the quality of U.S. healthcare, presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said Thursday In a Kaiser Family Foundation Web cast. Clinton said she has been "among the leaders" in advocating electronic medical records and she with former Sen. Bill Frist will continue to "push that rock up the hill." Clinton said electronic medical records could go a long way in improving the varying quality and cost of care now experienced across the nation. " I think it's very hard to think about having a system when you don't have any way for people to move from place to place, job to job," Clinton said."
"This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020, which details the efforts of some 35 departments and agencies of the federal government and their roles in the plan to "advance the collection, sharing, and use of electronic health information to improve health care, individual and community health, and research."
The 35 are listed in the article. Here are a few of them that seem inexplicable: Federal Trade Commission, The Federal Communications Commission, The Department of Labor, The National Science Foundation, The Food and Drug Administration, The Department of Justice, The Department of Education...
Because it was never really about you having the ability to move your medical records from doctor to doctor but it was all about the Federal government (all of them) getting their paws on your personal medical records. I said it before and I will say it again, they are going to append all kinds of information about you to your medical records because scoring databases and doing data matching is what they do.
Good job.
You do understand this absolutely essential for the Police State, right?
The most truly awful among them were the experiments that Dr. Eugene L. Saenger ran at Cincinnati General Hospital from 1960 to 1972. He was paid by the Department of Defense and his findings were used by several government agencies. What makes radiation experiments like Saenger’s more horrible than those at Tuskegee is that, in these cases, doctors were not merely watching an already existing disease take its course. Instead Saenger deliberately injected hundreds of people with potentially lethal doses of radiation, knowing that most of them would die rather quick deaths. At least 89 people are acknowledged to have died as a direct result of Saenger’s treatment, although the number is likely well above 200. Dr. Saenger even copped to the crime and openly defended his actions...
[emphasis mine]
If you went to the ER, and it was your Lucky Day, your government used your tax-dollars to murder you in cold blood.
As you might expect, many of the medical technicians and staff were overcome with grief and guilt, finally confessing as accomplices to the cold-blood murder of Americans committed by the US government.
But, nobody believes an orderly or a technician or a records clerk.
The nurses came forward telling all.
The government then used the FBI, IRS and other intelligence agencies to investigate the personal lives of the nurses to mount a smear campaign against them.
So the government plants stories in the newspapers and with TV that these nurses sleep around having extra-marital affairs, and their divorces and alcohol/substance abuse, and their bad mothers, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then Dr. Saenger....
What a freaking trip he was.
His ego was so massive, that this Doctor Mengele-wannabe just couldn't stand to sit there and watch his work being maligned and condemned, so he comes out defending it, as some self-styled "god" who did this great thing for all Humanity and Posterity by murdering all those Americans in cold-blood.
89 Americans murdered in cold blood by the government.
They never knew; their families never knew; and they received no compensation.
The families did file civil suit against Saenger, the City of Cincinnati, Cincinnati General Hospital and DoD. They government didn't believe compensation was justified. The evidence at trial suggested far more than 200 people. Nobody is really certain how many Americans were murdered by their own government.
Anyway, you can see how the government would use your medical records and other records against you.
Suppose the government "disappeared" your neighbor, and you started taking about it.
The government would immediately embark on a smear campaign, saying you were under psychiatric care or on anti-depressants or an alcoholic or substance abuser blah blah blah blah, or if you had a heart condition, the government would simply induce a heart-attack to silence you, and no one would be none the wiser.
Our system tells me when the patient is ready to be seen and in what room. In my small office of maybe 1000 sq feet and 2 exam rooms, this isn't really needed. I can see and hear! But it makes it easier for me to post on forums like this during office hours! <LOL>
Our office is bigger than that, 12 exam rooms, but each doc generally has 3 or 4 rooms, so it's not necessary for us either. Sometimes we don't use the full system.
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