The mountain of documentation leading up to the passing of any federal law is evidence of the pain that many, many individuals and groups have endured to get to the final end. While books can be, and have been, written about what can go wrong with passing legislation in a democratic bi-partisan, interest group dominated society like America, much, much more good than bad comes out of this process. The common balance that we seek to achieve in a democracy is one that benefits both society as a whole and individual. This is not an easy feat and usually requires tireless hours of debate and re-framing until a solution is reached. Even then, we have protections against laws that may violate individual rights in the form of our executive branch (the President can veto a law) and the Supreme Court (which can overturn a law as unconstitutional). More importantly, we have the people who elect our legislators as a sounding board for the effectiveness of the laws that are going to be, or have been passed. Strong enough opposition from “we the people” can lead to amendments or even dissolution of laws.
So it is within this framework that you need to consider the upside and the downside of computerizing your health information. The downside, which is certainly no small issue, is any breach of security of your information. I have addressed this issue in detail in an earlier post where I describe the protections that exist and the actions you can take. (Please see #2 post above). The upside to computerization of your medical record is that it can now be used as a much more effective tool to treat you. While you may not have been aware of it, the records of the past were often difficult to understand because of handwriting issues, hard for doctors in hospitals to locate because there was only one copy of it, and even more difficult to share with physicians or hospitals outside of the current one you were being treated by because it meant taking the record away from the current team, photocopying it, and mailing it to another provider.
Your medical record is the primary means of communication between and among all healthcare providers who treats you. If you are among the lucky few Americans who have only ever had one physician treat them or document in their medical record, this issue may not concern you. But, for most of us, at some point, we are treated by more than one physician. When that does occur, you will want the following to be the case about the information in your record:
- It should be legible and understandable
- It should be complete
- It should be accurate
- It should be easy (for other healthcare providers) to access
All in all, a computerized medical record is much more likely to fit the bill than a hard copy medical record. We are more likely to receive high quality care when our information is legible, complete, accurate, and available for all of our treatment team. And, while it is certainly valid for all of us to be concerned about security violations of our computerized medical information, we need to balance that probability against the benefits we receive from a computerized record. I address the importance of a complete, accurate, computerized medical record in Step 2 of my book 7 Steps to Your Best Possible Healthcare. You can read more about the book and getting your best possible healthcare at www.7stepshealth.com .
Ruthann Russo, PhD, JD, MPH, RHIT, is a healthcare expert with more than 20 years of experience working in and advising healthcare organizations.
