The Wall Street Journal earlier this week published the results of a poll it commissioned on the benefits (and one would hope, the potential risks) of an electronic medical record (EMR, also known as an electronic health record [EHR] or personal health record [PHR]). A summary of the results:
The survey of 2,153 U.S. adults, conducted Nov. 12-14, shows three-quarters of respondents agree that patients could receive better care if doctors and researchers were able to share information more easily via electronic systems and 63% agree sharing of such records could decrease medical errors. Fifty-five percent agree this could reduce health-care costs, compared with 15% who disagree. However, about one-quarter of adults remain unsure whether electronic medical records can provide these benefits.
Note that virtually no electronic medical record in existence today allows doctors and researchers to share information with one another. I’m not certain where the WSJ pulled that question from, since it would be a pipe dream. Researchers do comb and analyze data from medical records — both paper and electronic — but the way the WSJ phrased the result suggests they were talking about personal improvement of one’s healthcare due to such sharing.
Most medical errors are most often caused by human error misunderstanding or misreading something related to the patient. Paper records have the downside of bad handwriting, so indeed, one of the benefits of an electronic medical record is reducing such preventable errors.
About one-fourth of respondents say they currently use some form of electronic medical record; most say the record is kept by their physician, while only 2% say they have created and maintain their own record and another 17% said they aren’t sure whether they have such a record. Still, 91% of those polled say patients should have access to their own electronic records maintained by their physician.
And that’s the key finding from this poll — virtually nobody is maintaining their own electronic medical record. It’s not clear why the WSJ didn’t then ask the obvious followup question — would you be more interested in maintaining your own record or having someone maintain it for you? Chances are, most people would prefer their doctor to maintain it because there is just too much data to have to deal with to keep it updated.
Privacy remains a concern, but isn’t it always? It hasn’t seemed to matter one iota in stopping or slowing the growth of social networks, even those in health where people seem largely oblivious to the issues in putting all of their health concerns into a shared online database that is then accessed by marketing and data mining companies.
Link to the article: Benefits of Electronic Health Records Seen as Outweighing Privacy Risks
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12 Responses to “Another Poll on Electronic Health Record” (Pingbacks/trackbacks not shown below)
Mary Hawking at 5:58 am on
December 1st, 2007
I’m an English GP, and we are a long way further down this road that the USA!
Could I suggest some caution?
The construction of a EPR (defined for these purposes as a single person medical record which is available - with security - across all the settings in which that patient receives care.
If this is to be more than a legible set of notes in chronological order there needs to be a common structure or interoperability between all the different systems.
Look at what is happening in England - none of the elements - EPR, access controls, interoperability, risk to privacy - are easy and may be impossible.
When you add in the organisational elements - both financial such as billing and clinical - public health and individual patient alerts - things become even more complicated.
Did the very small sample who responded to the questionnaire (and linking doctors and research is bizarre) have any idea about the implications?
I read your article entitled “7% of U.S. Workforce Depressed” and I really think that number has got to be closer to 50%. Just take a look at how many people are at the bars every weekend getting completely drunk. If people were really happy with their jobs/life they would not need to constantly numb themselves. Granted most of them are in their 20s and 30s, but I am wondering if this type of after work binge drinking is a new phenomenon and if so it certainly says a lot about people’s attitude towards work.
electronic medical records at 11:39 am on
August 11th, 2008
at least i agree!
Electronic Medical Records at 1:17 am on
October 15th, 2008
Electronic medical records hlps to access online health records for patients and doctors any where and any time. So it will be easy for doctors to access patient records and suggest valuable prescription so that patient can cure soon
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I’m an English GP, and we are a long way further down this road that the USA!
Could I suggest some caution?
The construction of a EPR (defined for these purposes as a single person medical record which is available - with security - across all the settings in which that patient receives care.
If this is to be more than a legible set of notes in chronological order there needs to be a common structure or interoperability between all the different systems.
Look at what is happening in England - none of the elements - EPR, access controls, interoperability, risk to privacy - are easy and may be impossible.
When you add in the organisational elements - both financial such as billing and clinical - public health and individual patient alerts - things become even more complicated.
Did the very small sample who responded to the questionnaire (and linking doctors and research is bizarre) have any idea about the implications?
I read your article entitled “7% of U.S. Workforce Depressed” and I really think that number has got to be closer to 50%. Just take a look at how many people are at the bars every weekend getting completely drunk. If people were really happy with their jobs/life they would not need to constantly numb themselves. Granted most of them are in their 20s and 30s, but I am wondering if this type of after work binge drinking is a new phenomenon and if so it certainly says a lot about people’s attitude towards work.
at least i agree!
Electronic medical records hlps to access online health records for patients and doctors any where and any time. So it will be easy for doctors to access patient records and suggest valuable prescription so that patient can cure soon
