Digital Solutions for Health Care

I’ve said in previous posts that we must move to digital records.  In the past weeks, I’ve heard horror stories about the inability of medical providers to communicate with each other.  I personally know that to be true.  I recently asked a doctor treating my daughter if he was planning to inform another specialist (separately treating my daughter) about some new circumstances in her care.  He brushed off my question saying that “Talking to Dr. X is the least of my concerns.”  So it is up to the patient to make sure that the various members of her medical team communicate.  The danger of fragmented care is that the left hand doesn’t know/doesn’t care what the right hand is doing.

I’m attaching this link to an NPR piece describing the findings of a Kaiser Family Foundation poll about the public’s view of moving to a digital record keeping system.  Views are mixed, which I think is worrisome.  I am dreaming of the day when I won’t have to fill out the same form multiple times for different doctors.   Electronic Health Records make too much sense for people to realize their value easily.  We’re just too used to everything being complicated and inefficient when it comes to health care.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103322780#commentBlock