Have you ever been to a doctor’s appointment where the doctor asked you a lot of questions then referred you to another doctor only to have that doctor ask you all of the same questions all over again?
Are you tired of answering questions about whether you have any allergies? Are you ever curious why the doctors ask you when your last tetanus shot was? Don’t they ever write this stuff down?
As it turns out, doctors offices each track your records, but only certain information gets passed on when you go to the hospital or to a different doctor.
The solution to this problem in on the Horizon. I began my morning meeting with a doctors office that is a client of mine and a local group called Quality Health Network.
I was there at the request of the practice to act as a translator. QHN was explaining a new system that is being implemented all over the county.
The new system is an Internet based patient database that allows doctors, hospitals and other important medical offices to track all patient information by logging in from any Internet enabled computer.
At first this sounds a little spooky, but the entire system is HIPA approved. That means that it is so tight that only Doctors with proper permissions are allowed to access the patient information. Even doctors will be monitored to make sure that no abuses of the system take place.
The system will work much like the computer system at your local lube shop. When you bring your car into the lube center everything about the make and model of your car is logged into the computer. From that point on, every visit you make to the lube center is tracked. This allows the lube center to keep track of the maintenance on your car so that they remember not to tell you that you need your air filter changed until you actually do.
Unlike the lube center though, this database will be country wide. That means that every hospital and participating doctor will be able to access all of the patient information they need to. But, doctors who do not see the patient will not be able to access his records.
QHN gave the example that if Tom Cruise gets hurt in a skiing accident at a near by resort and has to come to the local hospital, his records can be monitored to make sure that only the doctors directly involved with his care will be able to see his records. Anyone who violates this procedure can be fined or cut off for violating HIPA rules.
I don’t know if this all makes sense, but in the end it means that patients will get better care in less time and miscommunication between doctors and patients will likely go way down.
Here is a link to the company that developed the software, Elysium by Axolotl. The only thing tougher to understand than geek speek is medical geek speek.
