Apple Working With Health Gorilla to Offer Comprehensive Medical Records on iPhone

[foodog]

I like that my doctor is the only one with my medical records. I'm curious how secure that data will be in an iOS app.

If you had any idea how wide spread your medical records were distributed and how poorly they were secured you would never have written this. The smaller the healthcare facility the more likely they are using off-shore coders, billers, cloud based EMR's, someone else's Health Information Exchange system etc... All this data is sent across the internet via flat files in email (worst case) up to encrypted HL7 interfaces (best case). The data at rest isn't likely to be encrypted even if it is transmitted in a secure manner.

Read this and tell me again you feel safe with your doctor having your medical records.

https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf - HHS.gov Wall of Shame
[doublepost=1497920682][/doublepost]

The point is this helps when you have multiple doctors throughout life, such as when you move, need a specialist, etc. and they aren't all on the same system. It also allows you to easily port your records to a new doctor without it becoming an ordeal.

As for the security, I can only imagine it would be strong enough for HIPAA compliance.

Apple can't even protect people's private pictures from leaking all over the internet so I doubt they can entrusted with people's health data.

Healthcare providers are better? Have you looked up the number of breaches over 500 patients? That is the threshold for reporting... guess how many go unreported?

 

[James F.]

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not comfortable with gorillas -- regardless of their education -- having access to my medical info.

Not something to worry about.. The way HI

I never understood how all these hospitals use Epic/MyChart for their digital/online medical records, yet they all have a different app or website. Seems like it wouldn't be that difficult to have one MyChart app/website that you just add approved/allowed providers to, and that would aggregate your Epic records from all those providers.

I work for a company that supplies the underlying database to some of these EMR companies and in the end sadly it is greed. They don't want to share your records. They want to make everyone buy their EMR. This way they make the money and if a hospital wants to share to another EMR or system well they charge for the access. As always everything is driven by money. One can only hope at some point they are forced to share, but it really hasn't changed for many years now.
[doublepost=1497921311][/doublepost]

If you had any idea how wide spread your medical records were distributed and how poorly they were secured you would never have written this. The smaller the healthcare facility the more likely they are using off-shore coders, billers, cloud based EMR's, someone else's Health Information Exchange system etc... All this data is sent across the internet via flat files in email (worst case) up to encrypted HL7 interfaces (best case). The data at rest isn't likely to be encrypted even if it is transmitted in a secure manner.

Read this and tell me again you feel safe with your doctor having your medical records.

https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf - HHS.gov Wall of Shame
[doublepost=1497920682][/doublepost]


Healthcare providers are better? Have you looked up the number of breaches over 500 patients? That is the threshold for reporting... guess how many go unreported?

You are right it isn't as secure as it should be even though the company I work for tells every one of our clients they should be encrypting their patient data.

I feel that Apple will at the very least make sure every part of the data is encrypted. Also since you should be the only one with access to your phone. As for the cloud I'm sure that with the new security that they have added that it will be safer then most records now. I'm sure two factor will be the minimum for those who wish to have their records in the cloud.

 

[skrumrei]

I never understood how all these hospitals use Epic/MyChart for their digital/online medical records, yet they all have a different app or website. Seems like it wouldn't be that difficult to have one MyChart app/website that you just add approved/allowed providers to, and that would aggregate your Epic records from all those providers.

They do. It's called MyChartCentral. Provides a portal for all your Epic healthcare providers. Not great but it works.

 

[Urban Joe]

This is total BS. Wait a minute. This needs to go through Congress. Apple should not be allowed to create medical dossiers on people without MAJOR government oversight. PERIOD.
[doublepost=1497924547][/doublepost]

There's a lot of what if's and I think's in this thread. For those truly interested, start with their FAQ. Then maybe peruse their Privacy Policy. The info is not all encompassing, but it's a far cry better than assuming things that may or may not be true.

tl;dr The data is stored on Amazon’s HIPAA compliant infrastructure. Apple is specifically mentioned in their privacy policy:
APPLE HEALTH, HEALTHKIT

• Health Gorilla will not use or disclose to third parties data gathered in the health, fitness, and medical research context—including from the HealthKit API, Motion and Fitness, or health-related human subject research—for advertising or other use-based data mining purposes other than improving health management, or for the purpose of health research, and then only with permission.
• Health Gorilla will not write false or inaccurate data into HealthKit or any other medical research or health management apps, and may not store personal health information in iCloud.

Oh right. We're just supposed to trust somebody because they put out a legal blurb. Don't be so naive.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

One stop for all of your health data via a phone is a risk.

 

[Bacillus]

Health Gorilla? Where do the people live who make these crap names up?
Is this a lost in translations thing? English a second language?
Cause Health Gorilla is a horrible name!

That gives me a nightmare association of Phil & Eddy nodding & laughing over my health data...
Could be a first symptom of Alzheimer, though.

 

[69Mustang]

This is total BS. Wait a minute. This needs to go through Congress. Apple should not be allowed to create medical dossiers on people without MAJOR government oversight. PERIOD.
Oh right. We're just supposed to trust somebody because they put out a legal blurb. Don't be so naive.

I read your quote and another more famous quotes came to mind.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it's the illusion of knowledge." You're quote is written as if you know something that's relevant to the topic. Apparently, you took no time to actually research what the company does and what the relationship with Apple means.

Apple is not creating medical dossiers on anyone. Apple is attempting to provide people with a quick access repository for their health data. It's entirely voluntary. No one has to avail themselves of the service. The medical information is only aggregated and shared among your doctors if you 1. sign up for the service. 2. have doctors that use the service. 3. give explicit permission for your data to be aggregated and shared. The key here is you have to choose to do this. Apple can't make you and neither can Health Gorilla. Why on earth would this need to go through Congress? Are you telling me we need congressional approval to use an aggregation app? That's absurd.

Oh, and no btw. You're not supposed to trust somebody because they put out a legal blurb. You're supposed to actually research the available information out there and make an informed decision regarding whether or not this is something you'd be interesting in doing. What you're not supposed to do is use Facebook logic and ALL CAPS to make an invalid point about a nonexistent issue. All that's missing from your quote is a factually inaccurate meme .jpg.

 

[truthertech]

I like that my doctor is the only one with my medical records. I'm curious how secure that data will be in an iOS app.

Sorry, but Obamacare did away with that. Doctors were forced to adopt digital records and enroll your records in a massive national database, such as EPIC, where pretty much any health care person, e.g., doctor, nurse, etc., in the country can access them. It's a very non-secure system, so I predict it will be the next major breech where we all learn that our medical records were stolen and are floating around. Without starting a political flame war, there is a price to a big brother approach. Again, sorry to be the one to break the news to you. Your privacy was good while it lasted.

 

[Urban Joe]

I read your quote and another more famous quotes came to mind.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it's the illusion of knowledge." You're quote is written as if you know something that's relevant to the topic. Apparently, you took no time to actually research what the company does and what the relationship with Apple means.

Apple is not creating medical dossiers on anyone. Apple is attempting to provide people with a quick access repository for their health data. It's entirely voluntary. No one has to avail themselves of the service. The medical information is only aggregated and shared among your doctors if you 1. sign up for the service. 2. have doctors that use the service. 3. give explicit permission of your data to be aggregated and shared. The key here is you have to choose to do this. Apple can't make you and neither can Health Gorilla. Why on earth would this need to go through Congress? Are you telling me we need congressional approval to use an aggregation app? That's absurd.

Oh, and no btw. You're not supposed to trust somebody because they put out a legal blurb. You're supposed to actually research the available information out there and make an informed decision regarding whether or not this is something you'd be interesting in doing. What you're not supposed to do is use Facebook logic and ALL CAPS to make an invalid point about a nonexistent issue. All that's missing from your quote is a factually inaccurate meme .jpg.

Be my guest. Sign up all you want and use the service to the fullest. In my opinion, and yes that's perfectly ok, it's a step to far and will not be using it voluntarily. In my estimation the scheme is way too ripe to be abused and on that point the preponderance of evidence is squarely on my side and no amount of spin or snarky condescension from any direction can change that. At the very first data breech or sign of gvt abuse I should hope that a huge class action lawsuit would sue the almighty stock options cleanly right out of every single Apple executives back pocket. Somebody [strong emphasis] has to be held accountable in this banana republic that has become a parasite on the American people. I would imagine you disagree but that's perfectly ok with me.

 

[dampfnudel]

I like that my doctor is the only one with my medical records. I'm curious how secure that data will be in an iOS app.

That would definitely be my first question and should be for everyone else. On the other hand, I recently requested a cardiologist's office that I visited a few years ago to fax the test results of a test to my new primary doctor. They didn't have the records and couldn't direct me to a medical records storage place that may have them. I'll have to try my previous primary care physician and see if his office still has them.

 

[Applecsh11]

If you come in to the hospital and not responding, how does this help get them the info? They are still going to identify you by your id and from there search for your medical records in their database. There should be a unified database for all health providers, if this is a step in that direction, then that is great.

I'm not trying to argue that this will be useful to some for changing doctors or going to a specialist(even though you were probably recommended to go to that specialist by your family doctor) but it's still a bad idea to carry medical records on you.

I work in an emergency room and I could see this being extremely valuable in the specific scenario you mentioned, an unresponsive patient without family/friend there to give at least a bit of their medical history. Pacemaker? Allergies to medicine, blood type? History of strokes, heart attacks? On any medications? We can already add this info to the medical ID, accessible on the locksceeen without a password.

While it would great if docs had a unified system to look everyone, I’m already imagining situations where having medical records on the phone could save lives. Security is a huge issue obviously, perhaps they could utilize NFC (which they’re opening beyond Apple Pay). Store the info on the secure enclave, then you can either consent to sending it to physicians/hospitals or authorized facilities can access this info with some type of secure terminal that’s only available to emergency rooms or something. Idk how they’d implant it, but there’s definitely some interesting opportunities.

Besides I already trust apple with my credit card information, email, contacts, messages, photos, etc. I’m certainly concerned about privacy, but if any of my information were to “leak”, I’d prefer it to be my X-rays and bloodwork than my texts and pics. Some people definitely have more sensitive medical information than I, things that could be damaging to their lives, but that can’t be the majority of people though, right? And obviously it’s opt in, so no harm in giving access to the rest of us. And as someone who handles your medical records on a daily basis, whatever apple implements is likely to be more secure than what we’ve got.

Long comment, but I love medicine and I would love to see Apple take a deeper dive in this sector.
[doublepost=1497944996][/doublepost]

Sorry, but Obamacare did away with that. Doctors were forced to adopt digital records and enroll your records in a massive national database, such as EPIC, where pretty much any health care person, e.g., doctor, nurse, etc., in the country can access them. It's a very non-secure system, so I predict it will be the next major breech where we all learn that our medical records were stolen and are floating around. Without starting a political flame war, there is a price to a big brother approach. Again, sorry to be the one to break the news to you. Your privacy was good while it lasted.

Sorry, but Obamacare did away with that. Doctors were forced to adopt digital records and enroll your records in a massive national database, such as EPIC, where pretty much any health care person, e.g., doctor, nurse, etc., in the country can access them. It's a very non-secure system, so I predict it will be the next major breech where we all learn that our medical records were stolen and are floating around. Without starting a political flame war, there is a price to a big brother approach. Again, sorry to be the one to break the news to you. Your privacy was good while it lasted.

I agree with part of your sentiment, but wholly disagree with your main message. Electronic medical records are really the only logical way forward, I couldn’t imagine an alternative.

Let’s say you come to my hospital for chest pain, first you get an ekg, then some blood is drawn, then you’ll get a chest X-ray. The EKG is the only thing printed, blood is sent to the lab and results upload to our electronic chart as soon as they’ve been run, X-rays are transferred to the radiologists as soon as the pic is taken, who will then type in their interpretation on your electronic chart. I’m fairly young, so I don’t even know how hospitals used to run. Would the lab technician run the results over, would the radiologist call the information over every time (that would be a lot of phone calls and a lot of annoyed emergency docs today). Electronic is the only way forward.

Big brother is a real threat, I get that. NSA spying on citizens is terrible. The apathy towards giving major corporations access to your info, despite knowledge they will sell it, is troubling. But I don’t think we should stop progressing because of these things. Would you neglect the light bulb because it has allowed people to see in your home more easily? Terrible analogy, but you get my point. The only way forward is to to be vigilant about the use and access of all of our personal information, but to keep pursuing technology advancements that will make life more pleasant.

 

[obiwan]

I can't see this being made available in the UK any time soon. Our medical records are still recorded by feather quill and parchment...

 

[diipii]

I never want my medical records. My doctor's job is to hold those and I wouldn't understand them if I had them.
I go to the doc only when I am ill and I decide when that is.
This is all so much a part of Apple's "reimagine" our lives for us mentality and it makes me cringe.

 

[69Mustang]

Be my guest. Sign up all you want and use the service to the fullest. In my opinion, and yes that's perfectly ok, it's a step to far and will not be using it voluntarily. In my estimation the scheme is way too ripe to be abused and on that point the preponderance of evidence is squarely on my side and no amount of spin or snarky condescension from any direction can change that. At the very first data breech or sign of gvt abuse I should hope that a huge class action lawsuit would sue the almighty stock options cleanly right out of every single Apple executives back pocket. Somebody [strong emphasis] has to be held accountable in this banana republic that has become a parasite on the American people. I would imagine you disagree but that's perfectly ok with me.

Uhhh, Joe. I see the problem. You didn't understand what you read in my first quote nor in my response to you. In neither quote was I advocating for anyone to use this service. Even if you go back and read it again, there will be no way for you to find any interpretation that allows you to come to the conclusion that I am for or against this project with Apple and Health Gorilla. It will be humanly impossible for you to do so. That is a fact. No one denies this. What you will find, very easily I might add, is that I am advocating for people to stop making assumptions about what this is, what it does, and go read the available information about the project and make an informed decision. In other words, stop guessing and go find out.

Preponderance of evidence? What evidence are you talking about. As of yet, you haven't presented any evidence of, well, if I'm honest here, of anything. You've created a narrative of data breeches, government abuse, company malfeasance, and class action lawsuits. Based on what exactly? Can't be a preponderance of evidence since, again, you haven't actually produced any.

 

[Dave00]

I never understood how all these hospitals use Epic/MyChart for their digital/online medical records, yet they all have a different app or website. Seems like it wouldn't be that difficult to have one MyChart app/website that you just add approved/allowed providers to, and that would aggregate your Epic records from all those providers.

The problem is that in implementation of the HITECH act, interoperability was not required until years down the line. So you have multiple apps using multiple databases that either don't interact, or require a high fee from the EMR company to interact. Even if two systems are both using Epic, they are operating using different databases. There are also issues with integrating data - for instance, if two databases have different med lists, do you combine, or does the most recent list "win"? Just having a reliable database for vaccinations would be a big win. Unfortunately, playing nice together is not incentivized in the current system.
[doublepost=1497970355][/doublepost]

If you come in to the hospital and not responding, how does this help get them the info? They are still going to identify you by your id and from there search for your medical records in their database. There should be a unified database for all health providers, if this is a step in that direction, then that is great.

The idea of a universal database is nice, but in practice it doesn't tend to work, because of discrepancies in the data. If your orthopedist wasn't aware your cardiologist put you on a new medicine, their med lists are going to be different. If you have your record on you, you control the information and tend to have the most up-to-date data. Now, for objective things like labs and imaging and immunizations, these should absolutely be in some sort of central repository. Unfortunately, the structure for enforcing something like that does not exist in the U.S., where different EMRs have proprietary data structures and can charge exorbitant fees for building links between systems (that often don't work even after you fork over the fees).

In an emergency, having a medical history and medicine list on a smartphone could be lifesaving, and would allow for much quicker access than trying to figure out where someone's medical records are, filing the HIPAA paperwork, and then retrieving them.

Dave
[doublepost=1497970974][/doublepost]

Sorry, but Obamacare did away with that. Doctors were forced to adopt digital records and enroll your records in a massive national database, such as EPIC, where pretty much any health care person, e.g., doctor, nurse, etc., in the country can access them. It's a very non-secure system, so I predict it will be the next major breech where we all learn that our medical records were stolen and are floating around. Without starting a political flame war, there is a price to a big brother approach. Again, sorry to be the one to break the news to you. Your privacy was good while it lasted.

Yeah, so pretty much none of what you wrote is true. EMR use was mandated by the HITECH act, not the ACA ("Obamacare"). There is no national database. And no, not every "health care person" can access Epic - they can only access whatever version of EMR they're using for their local system. Sorry.

Dave

 

[WRChris]

If you had any idea how wide spread your medical records were distributed and how poorly they were secured you would never have written this. The smaller the healthcare facility the more likely they are using off-shore coders, billers, cloud based EMR's, someone else's Health Information Exchange system etc... All this data is sent across the internet via flat files in email (worst case) up to encrypted HL7 interfaces (best case). The data at rest isn't likely to be encrypted even if it is transmitted in a secure manner.

Read this and tell me again you feel safe with your doctor having your medical records.

https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf - HHS.gov Wall of Shame
[doublepost=1497920682][/doublepost]


Healthcare providers are better? Have you looked up the number of breaches over 500 patients? That is the threshold for reporting... guess how many go unreported?

Well for the 5th time, I'm not so worried about someone 1000 miles away from me getting my health records remotely. I'm more worried about someone around me getting in my phone and checking my medical records and possibly seeing what medication I may or may not have. Read all the comments before quoting someone about something they have responded to 5 times.

 

[truthertech]

Dave
[doublepost=1497970974][/doublepost]
Yeah, so pretty much none of what you wrote is true. EMR use was mandated by the HITECH act, not the ACA ("Obamacare"). There is no national database. And no, not every "health care person" can access Epic - they can only access whatever version of EMR they're using for their local system. Sorry.

Dave[/QUOTE]


Dave, you can be an apologist for whomever you want, but your aren't entitled to your own set of facts and to mislead other readers about the dangers of electronic health records. To begin with,
the HITECH Act enacted by President Obama in 2009, was but the precursor for the massive expansion of government control of health care under Obamacare, which strengthened and expanded mandates for EHR's. Here's but one source discussing the mandate for the electronic health records in Obamacare.

http://watchdog.org/201170/obamacare-doctors-electronic-health-record/

Next, there are certainly, there is a de facto national database formed by the integration of these systems, and they are growing. And you are dead wrong about broad access to the nation's largest system, EPIC.

EPIC CEO Judy Faulkner says all EPIC customers now have the ability to send and receive patient data.

“One hundred percent of our customers that are live with our EHR are also live with our Care Everywhere software built in,” Faulkner told VentureBeat, referring to the company’s branded data sharing interface.. . . Faulkner deserves much praise for insisting that all of Epic’s customers be ready to share patient records with other Epic-using facilities under the Care Everywhere framework — even if they are competitors. It was important to Faulkner that a patient’s record could be accessed anywhere in the system, whether that patient is at their local hospital or in an emergency room far from home. Hospitals in the Epic system are required to share.


I don't know if your misstatements were intentional or simply negligence, but please stop spreading false information.

 

[blacktape242]

Personally, I trust my iPhone/Apple over my doctor's office as far as encryption and security go.

Im actually the opposite. Seeing I've had my apple ID highjacked and charges to my CC happen.
Since I work in the health care field, health data is extremely guarded.

 

[IJ Reilly]

If you come in to the hospital and not responding, how does this help get them the info? They are still going to identify you by your id and from there search for your medical records in their database. There should be a unified database for all health providers, if this is a step in that direction, then that is great.

I'm not trying to argue that this will be useful to some for changing doctors or going to a specialist(even though you were probably recommended to go to that specialist by your family doctor) but it's still a bad idea to carry medical records on you.

It isn't a question of the extreme case of being non-responsive. It's a matter of a fully-conscious patient being unable to explain (for instance) all the drugs they are currently taking, and their doses. Or to describe, in with some medical detail, the surgery they had four years ago. Or drug allergies. For an older person with multiple medical issues the numbers of drugs they are taking and the procedures they may have had can easily number in the dozens.

It is utterly ridiculous that hospitals expect patients to remember this at all, let alone be able to relate it when they are probably in the worst state to recall it accurately. Because of this lack of information hospitals are often attempting to reconstruct a medical history and they often end up giving patients drugs they are not prescribed for a reason. If you've spend a lot of time with the medical system, or has/had an older parent who did, then you will know exactly what I am saying.

As for being non-responsive, last I checked your fingerprint still works when you are unconscious.
[doublepost=1497980103][/doublepost]

I work in an emergency room and I could see this being extremely valuable in the specific scenario you mentioned, an unresponsive patient without family/friend there to give at least a bit of their medical history. Pacemaker? Allergies to medicine, blood type? History of strokes, heart attacks? On any medications? We can already add this info to the medical ID, accessible on the locksceeen without a password.

I wish I'd seen this before I responded. You said it all, and a lot better than I did.

 

[name99]

I like that my doctor is the only one with my medical records. I'm curious how secure that data will be in an iOS app.

Oh for crying out loud. You want to see a perfect example of whining for the sake of whining, look no further.
[doublepost=1497993064][/doublepost]

Really? I'm not sure I do. I'm all about using the phone to send info to the doctor but a full comprehensive medical record on the device doesn't make much sense to me.
I would think lose or theft of my device would be more likely than someone breaking in my doctors office and stealing the data. It's probably a non issue, but that's where my mind went immediately.
[doublepost=1497910114][/doublepost]
I'm in no way against this, just don't see the need for it on my phone.

OK, so someone steals your Apple Phone. Then what?
How do you imagine they get into it to read your health records, given that the FBI has (very publicly) complained that they can't do that exact same thing?

 

[Urban Joe]

Uhhh, Joe. I see the problem. You didn't understand what you read in my first quote nor in my response to you. In neither quote was I advocating for anyone to use this service. Even if you go back and read it again, there will be no way for you to find any interpretation that allows you to come to the conclusion that I am for or against this project with Apple and Health Gorilla. It will be humanly impossible for you to do so. That is a fact. No one denies this. What you will find, very easily I might add, is that I am advocating for people to stop making assumptions about what this is, what it does, and go read the available information about the project and make an informed decision. In other words, stop guessing and go find out.

Preponderance of evidence? What evidence are you talking about. As of yet, you haven't presented any evidence of, well, if I'm honest here, of anything. You've created a narrative of data breeches, government abuse, company malfeasance, and class action lawsuits. Based on what exactly? Can't be a preponderance of evidence since, again, you haven't actually produced any.

It's pretty obvious, despite an over abundance of words, that you have no clue about data security. If you don't see any security/trust issues surrounding this whole issue then I'm sorry there's nothing I can do to help you. And failing to offer a Phd dissertation defense on my part does nothing to change the reality of the context of reality we are operating within. I have no doubt that Apple and the gvt are pushing very hard to have a massive NSA style database of super detailed, comprehensive health data that insurance companies can use to raise individual premiums to the highest possible level. Hopefully I'm wrong but if you have a minuscule understanding of the history of our gvt you will see my point. Thanks for replying but I'm done with this thread. Some people believe and push for personal privacy rights while other people push even harder to erode privacy rights under the guise of convenience. I get that.

 

[69Mustang]

It's pretty obvious, despite an over abundance of words, that you have no clue about data security. If you don't see any security/trust issues surrounding this whole issue then I'm sorry there's nothing I can do to help you. And failing to offer a Phd dissertation defense on my part does nothing to change the reality of the context of reality we are operating within. I have no doubt that Apple and the gvt are pushing very hard to have a massive NSA style database of super detailed, comprehensive health data that insurance companies can use to raise individual premiums to the highest possible level. Hopefully I'm wrong but if you have a minuscule understanding of the history of our gvt you will see my point. Thanks for replying but I'm done with this thread. Some people believe and push for personal privacy rights while other people push even harder to erode privacy rights under the guise of convenience. I get that.

Never asked for a PhD dissertation. Really don't even need a preponderance of evidence. By this point any evidence will do. That generic Facebook FUD you putting forth is not working. You made a claim and can't back it up with any evidence. You can't even back it up with generic evidence. Trying to attack my knowledge of data security won't work either. Nothing in my quotes says anything about my level of knowledge of data security. Everything in my quotes should tell you about my ability to detect deflection. We should probably just agree to disagree, because you're never going to produce any evidence to support your assertions.

 

[Dave00]

Dave
[doublepost=1497970974][/doublepost]
Yeah, so pretty much none of what you wrote is true. EMR use was mandated by the HITECH act, not the ACA ("Obamacare"). There is no national database. And no, not every "health care person" can access Epic - they can only access whatever version of EMR they're using for their local system. Sorry.

Dave

Dave, you can be an apologist for whomever you want, but your aren't entitled to your own set of facts and to mislead other readers about the dangers of electronic health records. To begin with,
the HITECH Act enacted by President Obama in 2009, was but the precursor for the massive expansion of government control of health care under Obamacare, which strengthened and expanded mandates for EHR's. Here's but one source discussing the mandate for the electronic health records in Obamacare.
[/quote]

Just FYI, trolling is not something people like on this forum.

This is something I have first-hand knowledge of, having to deal with the regulations of the ACA and HITECH on a daily basis. I was subject to HITECH and its requirements for EMR before the ACA was even passed into law, and had to go through the excruciating transition from paper records. Again, to address your original claim before you went into "government control of health care" - EMRs were mandated by HITECH, not ACA. Please read the actual legislation rather than "watchdog.org", or talk to someone who actually works under the system.

Next, there are certainly, there is a de facto national database formed by the integration of these systems, and they are growing. And you are dead wrong about broad access to the nation's largest system, EPIC.

So, where is this national database, that I may access it? It would certainly make my life a lot easier.

Reality is that if someone sees another doctor, I have to get their signed HIPAA-compliant consent in order to ask that other doctor for records, which then may or may not be faxed or mailed to me, and may or may not include the information I need.

As for Epic, most doctors do not have access to Epic, myself included - if I wanted to access, I would have to pay an exorbitant fee and the data would be in a ****** incompatible format. And I would suggest you talk to an Epic user, rather than rely on press releases from the company, in determining how accessible records are that are outside of a local system.

I don't know if your misstatements were intentional or simply negligence, but please stop spreading false information.

Yeah, so please, if you want to have a discussion, leave the insults out.

Cordially.
Dave

 

[IJ Reilly]

Reality is that if someone sees another doctor, I have to get their signed HIPAA-compliant consent in order to ask that other doctor for records, which then may or may not be faxed or mailed to me, and may or may not include the information I need.

What Dave said, especially this. I'm not in a medical profession myself, but anyone who's ever been a patient or had a family member as a patient knows this face-palm moment all too well.

When my dad was landing in the hospital frequently towards the end of his life, each time my brother or I needed to be there to bring the ER staff a printed list of his prescriptions, even though he quickly developed a fat file at that hospital. If we didn't, an ER doctor or hospitalist would invariably prescribe medications for him that he'd been switched from to other medications years ago for various reasons. As often as not, the piece of paper would be lost in the ER shuffle so we made sure to carry along extra copies. Now this was in a hospital near his own home where his primary care doctor was in residence. If he'd been admitted to a hospital elsewhere, forget about it. They'd be starting from scratch, and without any family members around to advocate for him.

And what it about faxing? As far as I can tell, hospitals, doctors and pharmacies in the U.S. are the only people still using this antique technology to communicate. The gripers about security and privacy might benefit from the knowledge that this is how the system is communicating now. Yes, largely by fax.

The system as it exists today is an unmitigated disaster. Either one knows this from experience, and agrees, or they don't know about it from experience and therefore have no basis for expressing an opinion. Those are the only choices I can see.

If it becomes possible, I will definitely want to carry all of my medical records on my person at all times. Especially if I am traveling. Anyone with half an ounce of sense would want that too. That is if they hope to survive an encounter with medicine.