Medical Records IT.. or the lack thereof

One of my largest projects at the MD Small business Development Center was to setup an urgent-care medical center with a local entrepreneur. My client wanted his business to be differentiated as an upscale, less-stressful faciltiy. One of the major points of differentiation was that this business would charge its customers upfront in cash, and then handle all insurance claims after the service was performed. Prior to this, I hadn't had a great deal of knowledge of or experience with medical records and insurance issues, so I really didn't understand what the big deal was.

Since completing this project, I have to say that I am truly amazed at the complete lack of information technology in the world of hospitals and medicine. Why don't we have a central repository of medical information in America? It makes no sense. In fact, most medical facilities in our country only have hard copies of our medical records. This means that when a person seeks medical attention at a facility which he or she hasn't visited, that facility must contact the most recent medical provider for an up-to-date medical history on that individual. It amazes me that hospitals have such archaic records systems when CVS and Wal-Mart keep a national record of all of my prescription information; available instantly at any time.

With a centralized medical records system however, many of the current pitfalls of our medical system could be avoided. One of the major advantages is the time savings in tracking down someone's records, but the accuracy of these records would also be much more accurate as it passes through fewer hands. Additionally, doctors would be able to more quickly identify problematic patients; those patients whom frequent different hospitals and falsify information to obtain prescription medications. Additionally, a centralized medical records IT strategy would allow doctors and insurance companies to interact instantly, rather than having doctors and other medical professionals waste their valuable time in authorizing medical procedures and prescriptions.

The major downside to such a system is definitely security. Medical records contain the most personal of an individual's information, and this information could prove extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. To me however, personal medical records and information already exist and could be obtained by unscrupulous individuals with some degree of ease.

Perhaps this issue is closely tied to our current domestic healthcare reform efforts. I'm sure a more nationalized healthcare system would require such advances in information technology. Even if our country doesn't reform its healthcare system however, we really need to take steps to modernize our medical information systems for the well-being of us all.