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We need your input to make sure an online personalized health record in Washington State meets the needs of both patients AND physicians.
What is the Value to Physicians?
By Jeff Hummel, MD, MPH, Medical Director of Clinical Informatics, Qualis Health
Physicians spend all day making clinical decisions—gathering information, organizing information, making decisions and carrying out the decisions. For a profession that depends on good information, we don’t have the right tools.
The information physicians need is scattered—in our charts (whether paper or EMRs), in other doctors’ charts, in registries, in industry data bases, and in the heads of our patients. Gathering all of this information is expensive, especially if we take into consideration staff time calling for missing reports and asking patients about medications, immunizations and allergies. If we don’t gather the information, patients bear the costs in wasted office visit time, delayed diagnosis or decisions made without all the information (medical errors).
One solution is EMR interoperability, but that’s not the whole story. EMRs are essential for gathering and organizing information in one’s own system—they aren’t perfect, but they’re better than paper. However, to be of real value, information from other systems must be available at the point-of-care, and although there are plans for EMRs to talk to each other, doing this is expensive and hard to scale.
What if patients stored copies of key information and brought it with them to office visits, organized for our workflows?
Currently, there are three health data bank pilot projects in Bellingham, Spokane and Wenatchee funded by the Health Care Authority that are exploring how this would work for patients and physicians (find out more about the Demonstration Projects).
These health data banks would create a copy of a patient’s medical record, and are designed to increase patient responsibility for their health information. The patient has a copy of information gathered by physicians in different places, while physicians retain their own patient medical records at their office. The demonstration projects are working hard to delve into issues of privacy and security, how information is ultimately shared.
Used along side of other tools, like EMRs, a health record bank—or online personalized health record—could be of real value to doctors. How?
- By reducing costs. Patients would bring in a pre-visit summary containing information formatted to support office workflows. Demographic information would reduce front desk work, and medication information would reduce MA/LPN work.
- By increasing revenue. The health record bank’s self-management support function would help the PCP meet NCQA targets and qualify for Medical Homes revenue streams
I urge you to learn more and get involved so that the online personalized health records in this state will be developed with physicians in mind.
Learn More
Download a presentation [PDF] by Dr. Hummel that answers frequently asked provider questions about health record banks, such as:
- Who would operate a bank?
- How would a patient sign up for an account?
- How would information get into the bank?
- Where would the information be stored?
- If patients control the information, can we trust it?
- Am I responsible for things I don’t know about?
- How does the information get to the doctor?
- What about privacy and security?
- What’s the business model?
Find out more about the Demonstration Projects, and get involved! Even if your practice is not in an area with a pilot, you can still register your opinions and stay involved with the effort by participating with AccessMyHealth.org.
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