JupiterImages State and federal efforts to get doctors and hospitals to computerize patient medical records need to proceed with painstaking attention to privacy, security and software reliability concerns.
Hackers seem to have little problem breaking into computer systems that store credit card numbers and other personal financial information.
Surely, someone will figure out how to get into your medical records when they go electronic. Hackers could gain entry by exploiting weaknesses in networks linking doctors, clinics and hospitals to pharmacies, insurers and others. While doctors could call up e-medical records at home to make informed decisions on after-hours emergencies, that could give hackers just another access point.
The information in your medical records could be valuable to drug and medical device companies that want to market their products directly to you or your doctor. It could be valuable to blackmailers or someone who'd take pleasure in embarrassing you. Even the government has been known to snoop into private medical records for nefarious ends.
Privacy and security must be paramount.
Veterans Affairs medical centers, including the one in Syracuse, have been using e-medical records quite successfully for a decade. The records give VA doctors, nurses and other health professionals instant access to patients' health and treatment histories.
Every time a vet sees a specialist or gets therapy or is prescribed medicine within the VA system, the details are put into the patient's computerized file. No longer do doctors and nurses have to scramble for vital information in missing records or in records stored in different departments or different VA hospitals. The records can be called up on-screen at any VA hospital in the country.
The system has worked fairly well, and, overall, it has enhanced patient safety. But, as with all computer systems, glitches sometimes happen. And that could put patients at risk.
A striking example, as detailed in the Journal of the American Medical Association, occurred last year at 41 VA medical centers. A software update caused some patient records to be displayed under other patients' names. And doctors' orders to stop intravenous medications at nine VA centers weren't displayed at all. Three patients received intravenous drugs for as long as 11 hours after the medications were supposed to be stopped.
The federal stimulus package signed into law in February included more than $19 billion to promote health information technology. It also contained significant privacy protections.
But those protections could be substantially weakened by poorly designed e-medical records systems. Flaws in designs could cause harmful medical errors, too.
The potential benefits of electronic medical records are too great to let that happen
Hackers seem to have little problem breaking into computer systems that store credit card numbers and other personal financial information.
Surely, someone will figure out how to get into your medical records when they go electronic. Hackers could gain entry by exploiting weaknesses in networks linking doctors, clinics and hospitals to pharmacies, insurers and others. While doctors could call up e-medical records at home to make informed decisions on after-hours emergencies, that could give hackers just another access point.
The information in your medical records could be valuable to drug and medical device companies that want to market their products directly to you or your doctor. It could be valuable to blackmailers or someone who'd take pleasure in embarrassing you. Even the government has been known to snoop into private medical records for nefarious ends.
Privacy and security must be paramount.
Veterans Affairs medical centers, including the one in Syracuse, have been using e-medical records quite successfully for a decade. The records give VA doctors, nurses and other health professionals instant access to patients' health and treatment histories.
Every time a vet sees a specialist or gets therapy or is prescribed medicine within the VA system, the details are put into the patient's computerized file. No longer do doctors and nurses have to scramble for vital information in missing records or in records stored in different departments or different VA hospitals. The records can be called up on-screen at any VA hospital in the country.
The system has worked fairly well, and, overall, it has enhanced patient safety. But, as with all computer systems, glitches sometimes happen. And that could put patients at risk.
A striking example, as detailed in the Journal of the American Medical Association, occurred last year at 41 VA medical centers. A software update caused some patient records to be displayed under other patients' names. And doctors' orders to stop intravenous medications at nine VA centers weren't displayed at all. Three patients received intravenous drugs for as long as 11 hours after the medications were supposed to be stopped.
The federal stimulus package signed into law in February included more than $19 billion to promote health information technology. It also contained significant privacy protections.
But those protections could be substantially weakened by poorly designed e-medical records systems. Flaws in designs could cause harmful medical errors, too.
The potential benefits of electronic medical records are too great to let that happen
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