At this point, less than 20% of the nation's physicians have gone full speed on computerization. Obama's plan offers grants of between $40,000 and $65,000 to doctors' offices who computerize patient records, and up to a million dollars per hospital. But if health records are digitized on the federal dime, it will be far easier for politicians to claim the resulting information.Goodbye doctor/patient confidentiality. Dubya was content with tapping your phone without a warrant; now Obama wants to take matters further.
While the Obama administration is showing the smiley face now, its plan calls for federal penalties for doctors who have not computerized their records by the year 2014.
One of the goals for the new federally subsidized computers is to create systems able "to exchange electronic health information with, and integrate such information from other sources." This is a huge step towards a national database.
Medical data does not simply track the number of times a person went to their doctor seeking a cure for a runny nose or stubbed toe. Medical records could include details on long-ago abortions, impotence or sexually transmitted diseases, anti-depressants and details of breakdowns, or HIV Positive status.Seems to me that lots of people will shy away from visiting doctors (especially shrinks) for fear of compiling a record.
Access to personal mental health records makes it easier to exploit someone's vulnerabilities. Psychologists were brought to Guantanamo to exploit the weaknesses of detainees for interrogations. The same peril could be faced by the millions of Americans who received psychological treatment if their records are fed into centralized databases
True, computerized medical records will offer a number of benefits. For example, people with substance abuse issues might not be in such a "Rush" to acquire pills by doctor shopping.
But the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. This blogger expands upon the argument:
Once O’Bush gets all of our medical records digitized and uploaded to a database NO ONE WILL KNOW what’s been done with them. And you can’t ever take “them” to court to find out what they know or why you’re being charged with anything because of what they found. Once a medical record is triangulated with what personal data is readily available there is nothing about you that can’t be identified.Don't trust anyone who tells you that standards and protocols will protect the privacy of your records. Hospitals with computerized records have already encountered quite a few breakdowns in security. Check out this story from last December:
The Los Angeles Times reports that a former employee of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles stole the electronically-stored personal information of more than 1,000 patients.That said, I have far greater concerns over the official use of the information. They want to know your blood type. They want to know if you're on the pill, if you're taking meds for depression, if you've had an STD, if you ever had an abortion, if you have ever abused drugs. Total Information Awareness.
James Allen Wilson, 44, of Los Angeles used the patient information to file fraudulent insurance claims that netted him at least $69,000.
Just like Bush, only worse.
14 comments:
France, Sweden, other European countries etc... have had computerized medical records for many years now, which is extremely helpful for doctors, since mistakes in prescriptions (conflicts, allergies) can be avoided and better diagnoses can be done.
Besides healthcare authorities can do statistics and keep a record of expenses. Of course there are very strict laws that limit access to those records : in reality it's extremely difficult for anyone besides concerned praticians to acces them. Health care authorities can only access the reason for it (the motive for teh reimbursment) but not the file. Insurance companies cannot access the files. If someone else want to access it, they need a court order and they must have a damned good reason like for example a claim of an alibi, but what the court will get in that case is that you were in hopsital at that time, not the file details about your swollen penis after an attempt to screw the vaccuum cleaner. But of course we all live here in socialist countries where freedom is a distant dream.
So I find all these fears very overrated, unless one thinks that the US legal system is rotten to the core, no matter what President is in charge. Because the real problem is there in this case, not the computerizing of medical records.
As an IT professional, I have to say that standardization of medical records makes sense for reducing cost and improving outcomes, not to mention the benefit of having a huge database for obtaining information based on statistical data.
Imagine that you need to have a hernia operation. Because of these records databases, you could find out which hospital in your area has the highest percentage of successes and the lowest number of complications or deaths.
People who want this kind of information for nefarious purposes will probably get it anyway. Think the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office or the many idle incursions into passport records.
The ability to determine the effectiveness over time of certain medications, foods, food supplements, exercise regimens, and so on, controlling for a multitude of variables, has enormous potential for relieving human suffering and helping people live healthier longer.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Oh, and my biggest objection to the medical records deal is that it will be touted as "change" and "reform" and used as an excuse to keep the same bloated, insurance profit driven system we have now.
Isn't that what they're doing with the financial system?
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
I would trust Obama's motive for doing this and adding penalties for non-compliance more if he had done as promised and not voted for a FISA re-authorization bill that included immunity for the TELCOs. What is he trying to hide or what does he want to do by approving immunity?
Leloup~
"... there are very strict laws that limit access to those records: in reality it's extremely difficult for anyone besides concerned praticians to acces them."
Neither government nor companies seem capable of keeping peoples' records safe and private. Here are a few mentions of computerized records.
___________________________
-...stolen laptop containing 26.5 million veterans' personal records...
-Records reveal that 449 US businesses, government agencies and universities have reported data breaches this year, compared with 446 breaches involving 127 million consumer records last year. The loss of some 90 million consumer records last year...
-FAA officials had to admit that hackers breached one of the agency’s servers, stealing 48 files. Two of the files contained information on 45,000 current and former FAA employees, including sensitive information that could potentially make them vulnerable to identity theft.
-...personal information on 2.3-million consumers had been stolen...
-...security breach that remained undetected until “recently” may have compromised the names, addresses and credit card details of roughly 27,000 online customers...
-A malicious keystroke logging exploit hit Heartland Payment Systems in what many are already calling the biggest data theft ever, with nearly 100 million records siphoned from the large payment-processing company.
____________________________
What if I prefer my private medical information to remain PRIVATE? Why should it be any business of the government's at all?
" Besides healthcare authorities can do statistics and keep a record of expenses."
"Healthcare authorities"???!!! If they want statistics, that's an entirely different matter than MY own personal medical records. If they want statistics, my doctor can report that five men and two women came in for butt-tucks this week. Why would they need to know that Joseph was one of them for statistical or expense purposes?
Done right, the computerization of medical record would be a good thing. Not a great thing, just a good thing.
Done wrong, it could be a real mess.
I have no faith in our government to do it right.
I don't pretend to know the long term affects of a program like this but I do know that my wife got sick 2 years ago with giant cell arteritis which partially blinded her in one eye. The treatment for it is prednisone which ultimately nearly killed her.
What we found out though was that due to the laws on hand her doctors had serious trouble communicating with each other. Tests were duplicated, they missed their diganosis, costs piled up, and one specialist never got the information from another. It was a big, big mess. We started carrying around to all her doctors her MRI results, her blood work, etc. Something is seriously wrong when the laws designed to protect a patients privacy hinder their treatment and can result in death. My wife almost bled to death because none of her specialists thought to get platelet counts. They did everything else. So yes, we need this kind of program if it is done correctly and works. Otherwise, it will just be another thorn in our side and another way for big insurance to skip out of paying their bills just like they did with my wifes medical bills.
gp~
I sincerely hope your wife is doing well.
My husband also has had for many years, very serious ongoing health issues. His doctors communicate by FAX, email and telephone. They haven't seemed to need to go through a federal government data collection program to serve him very well.
"...due to the laws on hand her doctors had serious trouble communicating with each other."What "laws" would those be?
"...none of her specialists thought to get platelet counts."I'm not sure how this situation would be corrected by a national database. You said you carried all of her records to each doctor.
Best to you and your wife.
Some years ago, I considered the notion of universal records versus privacy, and what I came up with was this: why not have records which aren't linked to any personal information such as your name and such? In the hospital, you take a retinal or DNA scan, and your records pop up. Unless you are famous, or someone conducts extensive enough surveiilance on you specifically to find out your name and such, no one will be able to match you with your records.
Sergei Rostov
"So I find all these fears very overrated, unless one thinks that the US legal system is rotten to the core, no matter what President is in charge"
Bingo! I don't trust any of the buzzards.
There is such a demand and need for this service. This is a rare case where I would prefer universality over competition. I would rather have the government implement a universal system backed with good access laws than have Microsoft and Google implement incompatible solutions (as they are today - and they are very popular) without adequate privacy oversight. I appreciate their efforts but this need screams standards and universality, hence publicness.
I think, reading those comments above, that the main problem here is the fear of "goverment". The fears in Europe are less acute, depending that people here are more "pitchfork-happy", specially in France. Which makes the problem in the US universal, not only regarding healthcare....
Ellie, I think it is the Privacy Act of 1988 and what happens is this: If a patient gets treatment at a doctor, gets labwork done, whatever the person has to list who can have access to that information. Now, Doctor A sends you to Quest to get a series of bloodwork done. Doctor A decides you need to see specialist Doctor B after looking at your bloodwork. If you didn't put Doctor B's name down then Doctor B has to do the tests all over again because Quest can't give him the inormation and most likely Doctor A didn't send Doctor B the information either. Understand what happened here? Carrying your records around to every doctor isn't the answer especially when they don't/won't give you everything in the first place.
Ahh.................
The better to control you and to intimidate you my dear.
Post a Comment