Microsoft Jumps on the Health IT Bandwagon

Microsoft launched a public relations offensive today as part of the unveiling of its new online health records service, HealthVault. Bill Gates, never one to shy away from a business opportunity, offered the conventional wisdom on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page:

By giving us comprehensive access to our personal medical information, digital technology can make us all agents for change, capable of pushing for the one thing that we all really care about: a medical system that focuses on our lifelong health and prioritizes prevention as much as it does treatment.

But as he pointed out earlier in the piece, "Already, nearly all procedures, test results and prescriptions are recorded in digital form -- that's how health-care providers transmit information to health insurers so they can be paid for their work. But patients never see this data, and doctors are unable to share it." Ditto for Medicare, the biggest insurer of them.

So, then, isn't it a simple task to insist that these electronic medical records be made available upon request to patients and other physicians (with patient approval)? Isn't it a simple task to pass a law that requires all physicians, hospitals and clinics transition to patient-available electronic medical records with portability if they wish to continue collecting fees from Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs, which account for nearly half of all direct health care expenditures?

There would be a front end cost to the transition, of course. But in a country that spends over $6,000 per capita on health, is it unreasonable to budget, say, $100 a record for switching to electronic records? In a country with 300 million people, that's $30 billion. Spread it over five years and the cost is barely noticeable, and significantly below what health insurance companies make in profit every year.

There are interoperability and data reporting standards that have to be resolved. But instead of having every potential vendor reinvent its own wheel, a logical way to proceed would be to universalize the system created by the Veterans Administration, which blazed the trail in electronic record-keeping.

Strict privacy policies with powerful sanctions for violators must be enacted and enforced. Extra help for making the transition may have to be offered to solo practitioners or health services offered in poor areas. But the surest way to get to universal electronic medical records is to pass a law requiring it. If the nation waits for competing marketplace forces to solve this problem, it will lag behind standards that are already in place in Europe for another generation.

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Comments

[NABNYC]

A big part of Hillary Clinton's proposed "reform" of health care involves her giving millions of dollars of taxpayer money to hospitals and doctors so they can buy new computer and software systems and make everyone's billing and record keeping consistent.

No doubt it would help if everyone used the same forms. But why should the taxpayers pay for the transition? Doctors, hospitals, and certainly Microsoft and Bill Gates already have plenty of money without Hillary giving them even more of my tax dollars. Of course I would imagine that this promise by her will yield many millions in contributions not to mention public support from doctors, hospitals, and mega-millionaire software company owners.

It's so nice and neat the way it works out. Hillary promises to give my tax dollars to some corporate interest, and they give millions to her. Sweetheart arrangement.

[emerywood]

It is hard to believe that there are many patients who would want access to their own medical records to improve their own health care. They don't know enough to question the diagnosis or treatment and that is the reason they consulted their physicians in the first place. Transfer of medical records nowadays from one place to another is easily achievable.
The only reason to check on one's medical record is most likely when one has lost faith in one's physician.

[vox populi]

Look, how many times do you need to read about compromised credit cards and bank security to understand that the people who have access to your records and manage them are dollar an hour 3rd world wage slaves whose best interests are served by selling your information to the highest bidder?

Personally, the security is SO lax and the holes so big and results so very very very very predictable, that I think the same people who are pushing for these agendas are going to profit in some way from the "theft" of the data. Wouldn't health insurance companies just looooove to see everyone's health records before the issued a policy? Wouldn't your employer? How about your political opponents, oh public figures... think there's anything in your doctor's records that might make you, oh, you know, blackmailable..er... I mean... moderate your opinions?

I love it when the same coke-snorting "free market is irresistible" greed worshiping piece of trash also tells us that, just because there's a HUGE and HUGELY PROFITABLE market for your stolen records, doesn't mean they'll be stolen.....

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense- consider

your most intimate financial records are constantly in th enews as having been compromised and are for sale to the highest bidder.

your phone call records are easily bought, even now (on the black market) and always will be.

all anyone has to do is centralize records and then the fun begins...we all know that.

But when records aren't centralized, then it's just too hard and too risky to chase after ALL your political / business / ideological enemies. You have to target THEIR doctor specifically, rather than bury what you want in the theft of 3 million other people.

But you don't HAVE to do it.. until your employer / insurance company / whatever starts giving you higher rates, charging you extra fees to access your records (it's an efficiency thing) making you waste HUGE amounts of time getting your own records and filling out forms... believe me , once it's standard operating procedure, you'll have no real choice.