One cannot help picking up a newspaper or visiting a news web site these days without reading an article about a provincial or national eHealth scandal. The trials and tribulations of eHealth Ontario and their $1 Billion boondoggle, the ongoing investigation into the eHealth program in BC, the firing of a London Health Sciences Vice President in charge of an eHealth program and today the announcement of the Canada Health Infoway Auditor General's report on that organization's performance after having received $1.6 Billion in funding.
In the online media this is a very hot topic. Almost every article is accompanied by an enraged public with the vast majority of comments targeted negatively against the various programs and historical occurrences. And some of the comments are pretty biting.
The majority of the outrage has been targeted at large systems that are being developed at the regional or provincial levels.
Well, what about the GPs and Specialists who are seeing the 80% of patients daily in their offices and providing care? Those physicians who have adopted EMRs and embraced the change are generally very happy with the new capability and functionality they have achieved. Most do not have to deal with the larger public system other than to receive lab results or in some cases discharge summary or diagnostic reports (which all have to be delivered to them under law either in paper or electronic format for their own patients).
So, does the general public care about eHealth or have any interest in the current scandals that are so prevalent in the papers?
What are your patients saying about eHealth when they see you in your practice? Do they mention it? Is it an item of interest or concern? Is the whole issue being blown out of proportion by the media? With H1N1 as such a topical healthcare issue, where you think eHealth sits in level of priority in grander scale of things?
Please take a couple to minutes add your feedback regarding what you are hearing from patients. This will certainly be insightful in light of the ongoing public debate.
The biggest problem that my patients have as we engage in conversation is the "trust us" attitude of government as it steamrolls forward to the integrated provincial EHR and the forcing of the 3 accepted Alberta vendors for the ongoing POSP fundings to have off-site centralized stroage. The security can never be secure enough to protect the indvidual's health information or to ensure correction of misinformation inspite of Provincial statutes and the like.
The future will have a role for the true Family Physician to maintain a separate on-site record for the patient. It is interesting to note that some of the legal firms have already twigged onto the practice as we are being asked to sign affadavits that we have no "further" information in a separate/black/shadow file etc. when asked for copies of any/all recorded information.
Sincerely,
Ed Papp, Edmonton (onsite EMR user for years)
Posted by: Ed Papp | November 03, 2009 at 03:52 PM