EMR Software Blog (EHR Software)

What happens when the government “pays” for an EMR software system thru public funding or taxes? Will they be able to get a “free” peek at the records whenever they want to? What if a local county government hospital raises tax dollars to pay for a county wide EMR solution for hospitals and physicians, who gets a “free peek” at the info?

If a community health record system is available in a community, who controls access? Lets face it, just about any employee in a doctors office gets access to the EMR software, but what happens when you have a whole community wide database and a disgruntled male employee wants to see the “pregnancy” test results for his girlfriend or wife and bribes a friend who works in another doctors office to log onto the community portal and check results?

Alot of issues to be worked out here… don’t have all the answers, but safeguards need to be in place and penalties for violating improper access to the information that most Americans feel very private about.

Seems like the state of Vermont, in its “infinite” wisdom, is attempting to tax medical claims to help pay for a pilot project to implement electronic medical records software in the state.

Its not clear how the “tax” will work, if it will be added by the doctors and hospitals to the patients bill, or if it will be a tax to the doctors and hospitals.

Bad, bad, bad from my thinking.  First of all we are “taxing” the sick to pay for something that will benefit everyone. Secondly, I don’t want the Federal or State government getting involved in dictating what an Electronic Medical Record will look like or influence the decision making of the private doctor.  Lastly, the system proposed for Vermont, doesn’t adequately address “privacy” concerns (if the state helps fund and pay for the software, do they get a “free” peek at the records whenever they want? Or would they need a court order to view it?  What are the punishments for privacy infringement?).  This is BAD public policy as far as I’m concerned.