If all your medical records are accessible to all your doctors,

[hedgehog]

do you suppose that will put a stop to people getting the same prescription from three different guys and/or different doctors prescribing drugs that interact with each other?

[MadMaddie]

1. If all of the Drs are on automated systems that talk to each other

then yes. There are still many clinics that are not automated and that will pose a problem.

[livetohike]

2. If everything can get put on-line quickly, this should help

My Mom is on about five different meds and she has to take them with her to her doctor's visits so they are sure of what she is taking. (I know this because she doesn't drive and I drive her to her doctor appointments). I guess there is absolutely no way to be 100% sure about the prescription mess or anything else, since the info will only be as good as the person who inputs it :shrug:.

[madinmaryland]

3. Well that would explain why Oxy-Rush is so opposed to Health Care Reform!

:D

[Deja Q]

4. No.

Insurance companies already keep track of what meds are prescribed and when you call in for refills.

And, having told doctor after doctor the same things, they keep misplacing their information anyway. Do I want my information to be centralized so some quack can fuck up the whole thing by scribbling in whatever (s)he wants? N.O. F.R.I.G.G.I.N.G. W.A.Y.

There has to be a better way.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

8. People who "doctor shop" don't generally pay for the meds through their insurance

Most, by the time they have an addiction problem deep enough to force them to "doctor shop", have either lost their insurance or are in deep financial trouble.

And I strongly disagree about the centralized system. I work in the I.T. world, and if we can centralize our personal finances using technology (and not screwing it up), we can easily centralize medical records. My doctor is already using a centralized system so that if I go to a specialist, all my records are available to that specialist. If I go to one of the major hospitals in the area, they have access to my records. The medications I take are all there, my allergies, previous history, etc. I hated the old days when I had to fill out another damn piece of paper in a doctor's office, just so some records clerk can mess it up entering it into the system. My doctor even allows us access to our records to check for any mistakes, and we can get appointment information, prescription refill reminders, and other information on the web.

[Thothmes]

15. Nor do they always use their real names.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. There has to be a way that makes it so that the doctors

do know about each other. I don't know that we have the technology yet to make this possible. What would be nice would be to have all the records stored in a central safe and secure database so when a doctor or her nurse or office manager pulls up John Q. Public's records, all the other notes by other doctors is there.

[undeterred]

10. I think there is a way already

at least within a state. I don't think someone could go to 3 different doctors and ask for the same 'controlled substance' and fill a prescription paying cash at 3 different pharmacies. If a substance is controlled that would already be tracked. If somebody took the trouble to go out of state for an appointment they might get away with it. Not every prescription is a controlled substance, of course.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

12. It's definitely possible

See my post above for what my doctor's office does. It's a fairly small system that I'm a part of (10's of thousands, probably, of which only a fraction have doctors who use the system), but it's easily doable, and fairly easy to make it extremely safe and secure. It takes money, and as long as the insurance companies control our health care system, there's no way that they'll pay to get it done (you know that as things stand right now, it would require insurance company cooperation to make it happen).

[Mimosa]

6. I'd have no personal privacy.

Computerised records may be a Trojan Horse.

I've known many MDs. I'd trust but a few to write accurate records.

[juno jones]

11. A-men.

I'm still in fear of what an asshole urologist might have written in my records back in the 80's. He botched my surgery then had the gall to refuse me pain meds claiming that I must be a junkie (what for me was extreme mind-numbing pain, he saw as withdrawl. Yes, I was a charity patient at the time). Fortunately, a nurse recognized shock setting in and intervened. I only knew about it because my parents told me much later.

If I wind up with cancer and have problems getting pain meds because of that bozo, I will find some way to stick his unctuous attitude up his ass.

[abbeyco]

7. Yes, in a closed system like Kaiser

which my Mom uses, there's a full tracking system of all the drugs that she's been prescribed and during her last round of surgeries, they were able to give me a full accounting of what she should and should not take at any given time.

I know some folks rail against Kaiser, but their system does work and could be some sort of model for a health system. But that's my own .02

[elleng]

9. WE and our friends and family MUST be our own advocates.

My mother was ill last year, and my brother and I had to be vigilant about her treatment, before hospital with her doctor, in the hospital, and in the nursing home.

Doing so is not easy. My folks were in Florida, I live in Maryland, and my brother lives in Iowa (and travels extensively.) I ended up living in Florida with Dad for 7 months, my brother came in when he could, and had numerous phone discussions with me and docs.

[lindisfarne]

13. This "electronic medical records" is a bit problematic. What if you're fine with one physician

knowing something but you don't want anyone else to know it?
I guess that means you could ask that one physician to not put it in your electronic record - I would never trust having it in there but in theory accessible only to one physician. That is very problematic for obvious reasons.

[global1]

14. Polypharmacy Is A Big Problem - This Is Multiple Drugs Prescibed By Different MD's.......

that could potentially interact or cause problems rather than solve problems. Any system that can track all medications that a person takes is 'ok' in my book.

[RB TexLa]

16. The only medical records a doctor can access is the ones you authorize them to access

If you do not authorize them to access part of your records they are forbidden by law from accessing them.

[jody]

17. Those under a national health plan that provides drug coverage would have each prescription in a

central data bank upon approval.

That data could be used to support your idea if congress passes a bill or perhaps under existing executive branch authority.

[melm00se]

18. my doc

now has PC's and medical records software in all her exam rooms and I asked her how it was going. She indicated that in the 4 months they have been installed, they have only been able to digitize approximately 15% of their records. It's very labor intensive and you can't ship your records off to have it done as who knows if you will need "Bob Smith's" file and with her longer term patients their files are 6 - 7 inches thick.

with her new patients whose records are electronic from day 1, she says it rocks.

My big concern is that with that many medical people able to access these records, security has to be air tight, but the reality no security is perfect and it's only a matter of time until someone worms their way into the system for nefarious needs.