Thursday, April 7, 2016
Question of the Week No. 12
Healthcare providers are moving to a system of
electronic health records where an individual’s entire medical history,
diagnoses, treatments, medications and other health information are maintained
in a digital form. In order to provide
better and more timely health care to individuals, should physicians and other healthcare
providers be able to freely access and share this information with each other
without a patient’s consent?
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I think this is fine. I think it would speed up the timing of doctor's work and also the accuracy. It would make it easier on the patients because they won't have to memorize their entire medical history and who they have seen and stuff, and it will also make things easier on the doctors as well because they can be sure they are getting the correct information. This would allow for doctors to compare past treatments and medication easily and collaborate for patients who have specific, more challenging to treat issues. As long as this information stayed within the healthcare field, I don't have any problems with this.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that they should be able to FREELY access and share the information, because I think that leads into a grey area of privacy breeching. I think they should be allowed to share the information, but only if it is relevant to specific circumstances. I don't necessarily think that doctors would be selling medical information to each other for ulterior motives or anything, but you never know. If a doctor needed to forward a patient's medical history to a different doctor treating him or her, or other similar circumstances, I think that would be fine, but something about the phrasing 'free access' says too much availability without some kind of regulation, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think it make sense for healthcare providers to share this information without the patient’s consent, but I think that it would be perfectly fine for a doctor to require their patients to consent to the use of this system in order to receive treatment. I don’t see any reason why a doctor would ever need access to the personal healthcare information of someone who they aren’t currently treating. As for the creation of the system itself, if the information was kept and accessed in a secure manner, which is a big if, I don’t see a problem with this. What I think could be a good solution is to require patients to maintain their own password (possibly in the form of a QR code certificate), that, when paired with a certified healthcare provider’s password, would allow access to a person’s digital healthcare records. As such, doctors would have to have explicit patient consent, but as soon as the patient gives consent, they’ll have comprehensive records for them.
ReplyDeleteThe University of Utah Health Care system has adopted an online medical records system called MyChart. I do think it is very helpful for my doctors to be able to have access to my whole medical chart. That being said, I do think that it is necessary for there to be consent on the part of the patient. While it is necessary for doctors to have access to this information, it is still personal information. I don't think it would be impractical enough to outway the importance of protecting an individual's privacy, especially with something like medical records.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that allowing all providers access to patient records is an important part of health care, the right for providers to access this information and should not be a free-for-all. Hospitals have hundreds of providers and not all of them need access to every patient’s chart. A permissions based system would be better because it would maintain patient privacy while allowing providers to access information. Only providers directly caring for the patient would have access and access could be granted electronically to facilitate timely access to Health Care.
ReplyDeleteI'm for some restrictions on the access (there are very good reasons for restrictions on medical information). That said I think there should be be the ability to move this information around for lifesaving and research purposes. Additionally I think patients should have an option (possibly the default) to share their chart with all physicians and other medical providers working on that patient.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely think the patient should have to give their consent before medical staff or health care providers access their information. I think Steffi's idea of a permissions bases system makes a lot of sense, otherwise the risk for abuse is just too high for my taste. Personally, if I were having an appendectomy for example, I would be okay with my primary physician to share information with my surgeon or nurses but I wouldn't want some doctor out in Ohio to look at my information and start using my health information for a clinical trial without my consent. A permissions bases system makes the most sense from a privacy and practicality standpoint.
ReplyDeleteI think in this case, some sharing is good. If you are a patient of several doctors, your health care information should be accessible by your doctors and physicians to provide better care and better treatment. However, I don't think that any doctor should be privy to your information, only those that's treating you. Those doctors shouldn't be able to access your information without your consent.
ReplyDeleteI think that medical situations create some many instances in which that information is too important to deal with red tape. If someone is not conscious or not able to consent medical personal should be able to access life saving information. If the person is conscious and able to consent I think the doctor should have to ask for consent but in cases of emergencies doctors should have access that information.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there needs to be accountability standards and certain restrictions in place when dealing with sensitive medical information. However, given these safeguards, I believe a more streamlined system would be beneficial for doctors, patients, and the medical field in aggregate. I second Sheyne's idea that perhaps the default would be to have a patients record in sharable digital form. If a patient has privacy concerns, they could choose to opt out of this system. The patient is thus the one that assumes the risk if they choose to opt out. As far as I can see this would be the most effective method to both streamline the medical field and protect privacy interests.
ReplyDelete