Electronic Health Records and the Future of Health Information

The opinion piece The Health Data Conundrum by Kathryn Haun and Eric J. Topol highlights the major issue with security and privacy of electronic medical records, as well as who actually owns the record and the information on it. One line in the first paragraph was pretty striking " Most of us still cannot readily look at it, but there’s been an epidemic of cybercriminals and thieves hacking and stealing this most personal information." The article then goes on to discuss various examples of hackers stealing and disrupting health records and operating systems, including one example where the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid a ransom to hackers in order to get access back to their records and operating systems. One of the cases we studied earlier was that of Regina Holliday's case, where she was not able to have access to her husbands medical records to share with doctors, ultimately leading to his death. This could have possibly been avoided if she had access t...

This article in the New York Times highlights one of the major issues currently facing EHRs and EMRs (even though it is an issue they were meant to solve!): seamless sharing of data. The main issue is competing tech companies and operating systems are not working well with their competitors and even blocking some information. Doctors, including a pediatrician in the Massachusetts area, are complaining that they are unable to send or receive information to/from hospitals that they are sending their patients to. This is a major issue, if these competing tech companies make their operating systems unable to share and receive information from different EMR operating systems, ultimately undermining the main goal of utilizing electronic medical records. The article mentions acts by the government to try to combat these problems, including getting the Federal Trade Commission to enforce anti-trust and consumer protection laws in the healthcare IT industry, as well as congress enacting a bil...

In the modern world today, data is king. Data provides us with everything we need to know: likes, dislikes, preferences, history, behavior, etc. From the collection and analyzation of this data, we are able to make accurate inferences and predictions, as well as monitor life more efficiently. This is especially true in the Healthcare industry. With the immersion of data analytics in health, doctors are able to provide a greater service to their patients, as well as shaping modern healthcare into a predictive art rather than a reactive science. At the heart of this digital revolution is the Electronic Health Record, and the ability for doctors to share information and collaborate to ultimately help provide greater care to their patients. In this blog I will be exploring all things related to EHRs and EMRs including the benefits and downsides, and ultimately why I believe they are the future of healthcare.