Electronic Medical Records: The Best Innovation In The Industry

Privacy concerns in healthcare apply to both paper and electronic records

. According to the industry estimates, roughly 150 people (from doctors and nurses to technicians and billing clerks) have access to at least part of a patient's records during a hospitalization, and 600,000 payers, providers and other entities that handle providers' billing data have some access also. Recent revelations of "secure" data breaches at centralized data repositories, in banking and other financial institutions, in the retail industry, and from government databases, have caused concern about storing electronic medical records (EMR) in a central location. Records that are exchanged over the Internet are subject to the same security concerns as any other type of data transaction over the Internet.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, (HIPPA) was passed in the US in 1996 to establish rules for access, authentications, storage and auditing, and transmittal of electronic medical records. This standard made restrictions for electronic records more stringent than those for paper records. However, there are concerns as to the adequacy of these standards.

Legal liability in all aspects of healthcare was an increasing problem in the 1990s and 2000s. The surge in the per capita number of attorneysand changes in the tort system caused an increase in the cost of every aspect of healthcare, and healthcare technology was no exception. Failure or damages caused during installation or utilization of an EHR system has been feared as a threat in lawsuits.

This liability concern was of special concern for small EHR system makers. Some smaller companies may be forced to abandon markets based on the regional liability climate. Larger EHR providers (or government-sponsored providers of EHRs) are better able to withstand legal assaults.

In some communities, hospitals attempt to standardize EHR systems by providing discounted versions of the hospital's software to local healthcare providers. A challenge to this practice has been raised as being a violation of Stark rules that prohibit hospitals from preferentially assisting community healthcare providers. In 2006, however, exceptions to the Stark rule were enacted to allow hospitals to furnish software and training to community providers, mostly removing this legal obstacle.

Moving forward, this ruling has extended to private companies the same ability to market their proprietary software for electronic medical records, (EMR) when dealing with physician offices who are clients through medical billing, accounting and practice management software relationships. Physicians are increasing their business with these EMR providers by realizing the customization, real time interfacing and 24/7 support services most often are not the case in a large volume, centrally administered hospital data management department.

by:Corwin Smith

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