Senate Bill Calls For Open Source Electronic Health Records

An anonymous reader optimistically writes that new legislation has been introduced in the Senate that would call for a nationwide adoption of electronic health records built on open source. The bill does not seek to supplant proprietary alternatives, but instead to either augment or offer a cost effective alternative. "'We need advancements in health information technology across the board to improve the quality of care Americans receive,' said Senator Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care. 'To make this happen, we need universal access to affordable and interoperable health information technology — from small, rural health clinics to large, urban hospitals.'"

Comments

Test it with the military first

[HasselhoffThePaladin]

They should implement this in the military first as a test. It's always the biggest pain in the ass to hand-carry your medical and dental records when you undergo a permanent change of station. Of course, paper backups would be a great idea in the initial stages.

Re:Test it with the military first

[Smidge207]

Dude, I hear where you're coming from but I just for the life of me can't believe anyone wants to trust their health history to the tender mercies of computers and the internet--the same entities that routinely reveal hundreds, sometimes thousands of people's IDs, credit card and bank info for days or weeks at a time to passing thieves.

And can you imagine what it will be like to correct inaccuracies??? We've all been to that movie with banks, utilities, etc. and it's a total nightmare. Imagine if your medical treatment rested upon timely resolution of computer errors. Good luck with that.

I am a survivor of serious medical malpractice. I can assure you doctors lie--and lie very convincingly--to protect one another's butts, not just on the witness stand but on medical records that follow you for the rest of your life.

I am deadset against computerized medical records. My information has been computerized against my will and without my permission and is shared, again against my will and without my permission, with every doctor and their office staff in the vast network owned by our local hospital. In this day of HIPPA I, ironically, have no privacy anymore about what I choose to share with my doctor--it's shared for me, the wheat and chaff alike. I start out any relationship with medical personnel behind the eight ball--all without my permission or control.

I no longer tell my doctor anything except the bare necessity of what he needs to know to treat my current ailment. My doctor is nothing but a conduit for information to my insurer, whose only desire is to deny me care, and the hospital network which nearly killed me and then smeared me with lies. My doc is a very nice person but I can no longer trust him, thanks to computerized records over which I have no control. I avoid medical care whenever possible because I value my privacy. At any rate, my medical care is now hopelessly compromised by the inaccuracies on my records.

=Smidge=

Re:Test it with the military first

[DragonWriter]

They should implement this in the military first as a test.

The VA was and other federal agencies already were the "test". From TFA: The Health Information Technology Public Utility Act of 2009 will build upon the successful use of "open source" electronic health records by the Department of Veterans Affairs as well as the "open source exchange model," which was recently expanded among federal agencies through the Nationwide Health Information Network-Connect initiative.

Good place to start

[orclevegam]

After talking with some people in the medical field, it seems like an excellent place to start would be in the medical imaging records. Just about all the advanced imaging equipment out there saves the images to a "standard" format that's about as standard as a MS Word file. Every manufacturer has their own custom version of the "standard" that's incompatible with everyone else, and regularly updated, thus ensuring a constant (and broad) income stream.

Why open Source not open Standard?

[mdf356]

I don't see why it matters who implements someone's electronic health records (open source, Joe's Software Shack, Bill's Multi-National Software Emporium, etc.)

But what the Government should work on (and it's their job to do so) is making sure there is a single open standard format for the records, so that they can be used and transfered between providers with different systems. Otherwise electronic documents can easily end up worse than paper.

RTFA

[DragonWriter]

Why not use the one our tax dollars have already developed?

Why not RTFA?

VistA is the VA's EHR system.

FTFA: The Health Information Technology Public Utility Act of 2009 will build upon the successful use of "open source" electronic health records by the Department of Veterans Affairs as well as the "open source exchange model," which was recently expanded among federal agencies through the Nationwide Health Information Network-Connect initiative.