good heavens ,seems like everyone is getting hot under the collar before anything happens

let's all take a deep breath and put on our grown up hats
dialogue about this when there is something to talk about,if you have health insurance and you can pay the ever increasing premiums,and the out pocket and the prescriptions well may I suggest you are not even in the loop

you're being tracked plenty right now ,radio shacks wants all your personal information address phone number work phone number they get your credit card number

and your bank sells all your account info to anyone with 60 bucks that wants it

Isn't the Doctor best qualified to make this judgment for patients. This is extremely disturbing. I hope people wake the # up!

More than ever, it's time to get as healthy as possible and stay healthy for as long as possible. The less you need to rely on a socialized system, the better, IMO. I know that's not possible for everyone (pre-existing conditions, genetic factors, etc.). But it seems it would be wise to do what you can to prevent problems later. I realize that's a wise way to live anyway, but this puts the importance into focus.

I am a former IT professional and a consumer of health care due to a pre-existing condition. It is not a good idea to allow the government to be a central repository of medical information without lots of guards against the lack of data integrity that already runs rampant in every data set kept since the dawn of time.

Data integrity is laughable when it comes to any IT system. The data is only as good as whoever puts it into the system. Medical data already is rather poorly kept - and just making it standardized won't help.

Sorry, but I have worked in many fields as an analyst - for creating IT systems - and the health care IT groups are the absolute worst. Their attitudes and ways of doing things would get them fired in any other industry.

Issues I have seen over and over again is a lack of actually investigating how people do their jobs - from nurses to doctors to the differences between the specialties. All of the current work has been built off of billing, which is not necessarily conducive to patient care.

Now, having access to records easily would be conducive to better care. The problem is that most medical records are poorly. I know in my own records, I had some idiot input that I was an "occasional drinker" on the same sheet that said I was allergic to ingested alcohol. So, the records are only of limited use due to problems with data entry.

Originally posted by camain
being an IT manager in the health care industry, and having my wife be a nurse in the ER of a hospital, I am in favor of this. YOu have to understand why they are doing this. THere are to many people on welfare, medicaid, medicare that feel the the ER is the primary care physician. You can go in, and get what you need, when you want it, and there is no accountablity. Lets say someone goes to the ER every week complaining of severe pain. The doctor gives them some IV pain med, and gives them a prescription of Loratab for 1 week. Tells them to follow up with the doctor. Here is the issue. THat one week gives them over 100 pills. 100 pills that on the street can sell for 3 dollars each. They can go in every week, and sell it on the street and turn a 1200 profit without any problems right now. Lets talk about the fact that there is no co-pay for someone to come into the ER via ambulance for a head cold. Its all paid for, the reason for the ambulance is because they get in faster then walking in. Again thats inefficancy.

....

This is all a good thing. If you want to talk about tracking and monitoring, there is nothing hear that you haven't already given them, all this is doing is centralizing the data. You will get a card that has an ID number. That ID number will connect to a national emr, when you swipe your card, your data is downloaded to the local EMR of the location that your at. when you leave the location, all that data is uploaded back to the national EMR, that where regardless of where you are, that data is preserved and carried over.

They won't put your data directly on the card, and if they think that they are, there stupid, its a hippa violation.



Our Health industry is broken, this is just the beginning on repairing it,

Just my opinion,

camain

[edit on 10-2-2009 by camain]

Well first of all, thank you for your wife's service

I have a family member (and an Acquaintance) currently going into Nursing, and it is a job field which currently has a serious need/requirement for Professional, Compassionate, and Competent individuals. Having experience with Health Care myself, I know how important Nurses are, as they are the ones who truly determine whether a Patient's Experience is a Good or Bad one.

Also, thank you for your contributions to the Health Care field as well

However, in terms of "Record Sharing", whatever happened to a Fax Machine? It cannot be Hacked, it does not succumb to Spyware and/or Viruses, and it relies on a Stable, and easily Repaired Telecommunications System. I am ALL for the sharing of Health Records between Hospitals and such, that is okay. However, we must get away from this idea that Digital Information can somehow be a replacement for Paper Records. If some tragedy occurs, and/or systems become shut down, then what? I say allow the Computer Based Secure File Access, but keep utilizing the Paper Records as a back-up at the very least, AND scrap the rest of the garbage in this Line Item.

The only Item which should be in this Section of the Bill, is a Single Line, declaring the Computer Based sharing of Medical Records between Hospitals and Relevant Physicians. That is all. All of the other junk is nothing more than bureaucratic "Red Tape".

[edit on 2-10-2009 by TheAgentNineteen]

I hate to say it. But Americans seem to be pesimistic as hell. Like some have already stated in this thread, there are thousands if not millions of people in the states who are rejected treatment every day. It's brutal I'm aware of this living in Canada. Yes surprise, we actually get satellite now. Living in igloos can be such a pain.

Anyways, no health care system is perfect. Why Americans have such a huge fear of "socialized" health care amazes me. I didnt think you guys were still living in the cold war. Here in Canada, I can afford my health care. I believe I pay a whopping $500 a year for it. Thats canadian currency. So ice cubes. Trust me we try to spend it as quickly as possible. The phrase burning a whole in your pocket totally dosent apply.

All I'm trying to get at, is that yes your government is trying to enslave you. Thats normal. Like comeon, they have only spent the past 100 or so years trying to do it. The funny part is, none of you are doing anything about it. For crying out loud its happening here in Canada, and all I can do is ream out my MLA who is completely oblivious to the woes of the country. So, read a book, do some research, and you'll find that these "socialist" ideals, arent the spawn of hitler after all. If I had cancer, it wouldnt cost me anything to get the treatment I needed. So let me ask you this, what would it cost you to get the treatment?

Anyways, just thought I'd throw a canucs opinion in there. Have a good one!

This should not be presented with the Stimulus plan first of all. Secondly the Stimulus plan stinks even without it. The point is the Health Plan needs its own time and its own vote.

With the most left wing, uncompromising Senator now in the Saddle, you are surprised why? Folks, this is just the beginning of their atttempts to introduce communism into America. However, the legal group that was one of the 17 who were ignored by the SCOTUS has promised to file suit contesting EVERY bill signed by the Kenyan. Probably dismissed, but making it the utmost difficult to do anything. Which is what I like. A completely ineffectual Fed. THEN, we are safe.

The system will be as good or as bad as those who operate it. Just like the system we have now. Granted there will be some snafus in the early years- all change (implicitly including all progress) is destabilizing in the short term. But the most powerful factor in the quality or lackthereof in our medical system will remain essentially the same.

The difference? The same people operate it for all, and we all do well or poorly together depending on how well we hold the operators (personified in the president and the new secy) accountable for their performance.

So its major flaw is identical with that of our current system, but this way we get democratic control. Also, localized care gaps which essentially create a correlation between wealth and care are somewhat diminished. And before you conservatives jump on that last sentence, please note the inescapable suggestion that worthiness to be saved is something one must purchase- scarcely different at all from suggesting that worthiness to live is something which must be purchased... (and that's when I start accusing you of violating the pro-life plank of the republican platform, completely ignoring the objections of libertarians on the grounds that I live in fear of many of their candidates and don't want to be on their short list if they ever attain power). So for the love of babies and Ron Paul, nobody try to defend healthcare disparities between economic classes.


Short answer: This system will have a rough start, within a few years will return to present standards, possibly with modest improvements, and in the longer term it offers a new approach to an old problem which IF successful, theoretically could create a quantum leap in our standard of care.

I say go for it. It's a break even or modest gain proposition in the mid-term outlook, and setting it up gives Americans something they desperately need right now: something to do (both in the sense of employment and in the sense that this nation has been at a near idle on the domestic front since the 1970s and desperately needs to start setting societal goals again).

Jeez, there are some Luddites talking here.

This is the 21st Century - PAPER is OBSOLETE!

I am a Nurse in the UK - YES, ''socialised healthcare'' if you want to call it that to make you feel happy - I work for the NHS which is run by the DoH .... the Government.

Currently underway is a National Healthcare Records Program for digitalising patients healthcare records - True it is over budget and is not up and running fully yet.

I will have a celebration the day that patients' records are fully available on the Computer and the paper ones are consigned to the incinerator.

Paper records are a bloody nightmare to work with, almost impossible to read (doctors cannot write clearly) and are in such a state that they are falling to bits, not to mention that some patients' notes run into several volumes that need trolleys to wheel them around from ward to ward. The system is archaic and should be consigned to the dustbin.

Apart from the above, WHY should I spend 50-60% of my working time writing in patients' notes when I could actually be giving them some care? For those of you who do not work in a busy hospital, you have no idea of the amount of paperwork that is involved in just one patient.

It is very obvious to me, that MOST people that are writing in this thread do NOT work in Healthcare.