Buzzword: Electronic health records
What are they? Electronic health records (EHRs) are comprehensive, computerized versions of the paper medical records most doctors now use. Supporters of EHRs hope to establish nationally recognized standards for such records that allow health care providers to record all your medical information—including test results, diagnoses, medications, drug allergies, and family history—and share them, electronically, with any other authorized provider, including doctors, nurses, hospitals, nursing homes, home-care providers, pharmacists, and social workers. Patients, too, would have access to such records.
Why the buzz? The recently-passed economic stimulus package includes $19 billion for health information technology, much of it for electronic health records. The Obama administration says that the computerized records can save money and improve patient care. The non-profit Rand Corporation estimates that such technologies could save up to $81 billion each year, if they’re adopted by 90 percent of health care providers. But only about 20 to 25 percent of hospitals and 15 to 20 percent of doctors now use such systems.
EHRs could improve patient health by enhancing the coordination of care from multiple providers. For example, they could reduce the risk of doctors prescribing duplicate or competing medications, and allow them to track the care from other providers over time. But developing that system presents not only financial and technological challenges, but also legal ones. For example, the system must ensure patient privacy. And health care providers will have to agree on the standards and programs to use, and to share information with one another.
Essential Information
National Alliance for Healthcare Technology
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
—Bob Williams, strategic resource director, Consumers Union
For more information, read our blog on EHRs at PrescriptionForChange.org.
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