

Who's working on Obama's promise of electronic medical records in 5 years? - niels_olson

There's certainly no lack of EMR software, but who's going to make sure I, the doctor, can get records from different databases and have them presented to me in the same format? No matter what hospital or office I'm in, no matter where the information is coming from, I would <i>really</i> like it to be presented to me, whether on a screen or on paper, in the same format. Right now the state of the farce is that every doctor spends more time learning the 9 zillion EMR systems than on the patients they treat. The frustration factor definitely leads to medical errors.<p>Anybody working on this?<p>Edit: President mentions the 5 year horizon in the weekly address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDfpd8GV9dI
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rrhyne
I consulted for a startup that transcribed medical records and enabled
insurance companies to search and filter them to find fraud, malpractice,
whatever.

Apparently changing the workflow in a big insurance company isn't like
steering a big ship, it's like steering an island.

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hendler
Microsoft and Google are hard to ignore - even if there are zillions of EMRs.

There's room in the long tail for smaller ideas - but this is probably going
to be a formats war.

[http://www.microsoft.com/industry/healthcare/providers/busin...](http://www.microsoft.com/industry/healthcare/providers/businessvalue/housecalls/clinicalworkflow.mspx)

[http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN285482202...](http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2854822020080229)

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Paul_Morgan
There are already some industry & government formats:

Prescriptions: <http://www.ncpdp.org>

Health Records: <http://www.medicare.gov/PHR/Default.asp>

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plokm
There is a startup located in Connecticut that's found a reliable, one day
turnaround transcription and medical filing service. It'll probably get a
nice, fat Obama boost soon.

<http://www.imedx.com/>

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rubing
I was asking this at my doctors office yesterday. I'm sure the arcane
situation is due to the required confidentiality needed with patient data.
Average people (secretaries, receptionist) can not be trusted to keep digital
data secure, given the cleverness of social engineering. Moreover, public
perception of data insecurity is well established. So, you would need a very
secure system and to convince the public.

