Link: The Health Care Blog: Personal health records and the law.
"The Rise of the Personal Health Record: Panacea or Pitfall for Health Information" is an article written by two health care lawyers, Bob Coffield and Jud DeLoss on topics of the changing world of PHRs, introductory material on Health 2.0, and legal and compliance issues for PHRs. Information related to this article will be presented to the Health Information and Technology Practice Group which is a forum that provides education about legal issues arising from the use of technology in health care.
The article discusses fragmentation in the healthcare system, noting that PHRs may be the "disruptive" technology that will address complexity in maintaining and sharing health information. The article also mentions that transformation to a PHR system by facilities and/or providers may be fueled by interest in web-based social networking and Health 2.0. Of course, with each mention of electronic health records, the question of ownership of the information arises. Their discussion suggests that the patient should be in control of his medical information. I believe that is a point well worth noting.
Looking for a best of breed HIPAA Compliance Tracking System?
To stay current on the HITECH Act and its quickly changing regulatory scheme visit the HITECH Survival Guide website and/or sign up for our free monthly compliance newsletter. Also, check out our FREE EHR Checklist.
If you need tools that will help with your compliance initiatives then check out the HSG Store.
It's sad that the health of a person and communities are so marred by legal discussions. Certainly necessary, but I always wonder where we'd be if legal discussions were replaced by more productive conversations.
Posted by: John Lynn | October 23, 2008 at 06:35 PM
That is a very interesting topic. Actually, Gartner analysts predict that, by 2009, healthcare investments in IT will increase by more than 50 percent, which could enable clinicians to reduce the level of preventable deaths by 50 percent by 2013. Of course, nowadays most healthcare organizations have already invested in IT outsourcing, for anything from Telco and Wireless, to Application Data Development (i.e. LIMS, SOA, EMR), or even Business Process Management.
We’ve put together a detailed white paper on these subjects: http://www.outsourcing-factory.com/en/stay-informed/white-papers/outsourcing-healthcare.html . What is your experience with IT outsourcing in healthcare? Are these figures close to your personal experience or do you think there are certain issues we’ve missed covering? I strongly appreciate your professional opinions.
Posted by: Gerard Szatvanyi | October 22, 2008 at 04:12 AM