Katie Foutz has an article in the Naperville Sun that starts out by describing how helpful it can be to have electronic health records:
[…]
While victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita relocated to places around the country, they couldn’t always remember the names or dosages of the medications their Gulf Coast doctors had prescribed. And their doctors had no way to access their medical histories to confirm refills, avoid dangerous drug interactions or prevent allergic reactions.
Less than three weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, an electronic health records Web site called KatrinaHealth.org was up and running. A coalition of public and private institutions pieced together prescription medicine histories from state health department records, pharmacies and insurance forms and made them available to health care professionals who treated evacuees.
Foutz also describes a local medical practice to demonstrate how choices might work:
At Lakeside Family Practice in Naperville, each new patient gets a user ID for access to the Web-based patient portal – and they control which doctors and family members share that access. From there, they can enter their own medical history, or they can visit the office to fill in circles on a sheet of paper the staff scans into a computer.
“Or you can have the doctor or nurse do it the old way,” putting pen to paper, said Dr. Robert Millar, owner of Lakeside.
During appointments, Millar can use his laptop computer to type prescriptions, look up medical information online, and update medical records in real time. From any computer with Internet access, patients can request prescription refills, check lab results, make appointments and update their own information. They also can contact the staff about health issues over a messaging system that’s more secure than e-mail, Millar said.
In addition, patients can print a wallet card that allows them to carry their login site and user ID, plus and basic health information – such as emergency contacts, blood type and allergies.
Read more – Naperville Sun
Comment: What practices such as Lakeside Family Practice are trying to do is admirable in terms of being patient-friendly. But Foutz’s article, like so many others I’ve read, really doesn’t explain how the patient can feel confident that the data stored online are secure. In this day and age of malware, hackers, etc., should patients be asked, “Look, it will be better for your healthcare if you allow us to upload all of this information, but we have to warn you that it’s possible that someday, hackers or others might access all your data — everything you’ve put online. Nothing connected to the internet may ever be totally secure, but we’ve made this as secure as we can. So…. are you still willing?”
Some patients might say “yes,” and it strikes me that we’d be a lot closer to getting truly informed consent that way.