Slight Christmas rant (unrelated to Christmas)

[PeterB]

Going through my medical records online, getting prepped for a possible new therapy, where it'd be important to know all my conditions and prior test results. What I'm seeing is:

1) Lots of test results are missing from my main medical record. This is unconscionable and seems to be the result of everything being stored in different systems, where the different systems are all not "talking" to one another.

2) Some results are only accessible by requesting the company to "restore" them, especially if they're old records (greater than about 4 years). This makes no sense, and argues against having records only being in electronic form.

3) Some results are only visible if you query using a particular set of criteria, e.g., from date X to date Y, whereas if you query from date X to date Z, they aren't visible (???)

4) Some test results simply appear to be completely missing. Can't be found, nowhere, no how.

5) Some comments/assessments/diagnoses in my record from my doc that he hasn't discussed with me AT ALL. Don't know how common this is, but doesn't a patient have a right to know everything about his/her condition?

Overall, the impression I get is that the records are all a patchwork, and the claim that everything being stored electronically would reduce costs and increase efficiency is a load of horse manure. I can see why medical billing is such a scam.

Sorry, just had to rant.

[Sarcany]

It feels like a ridiculous waste of time and space, but I print every test result and file it by provider and date.

For anything more than a quickie X-Ray, I get copies of my scans on CD.

[S. Pupp]

The concept of electronic medical records is good.
The implementation, on the other hand, is appalling, and has led to utter chaos.
I’ve yet to see an EMR that beats paper records. I can type faster than I can write, but the amount of click-click-click-click-clicking and paging back and forth really slows things down.
The EMR is designed for the billers and number crunchers. Physicians are now primarily data entry technicians.

[S. Pupp]

Sarcany wrote:
It feels like a ridiculous waste of time and space, but I print every test result and file it by provider and date.

For anything more than a quickie X-Ray, I get copies of my scans on CD.

I do the same.

[PeterB]

S. Pupp wrote:
[quote=Sarcany]
It feels like a ridiculous waste of time and space, but I print every test result and file it by provider and date.

For anything more than a quickie X-Ray, I get copies of my scans on CD.

I do the same.
It's looking like I'm going to have to do the same as well. Honestly, this is just ridiculous. I've already spent more time than I could have imagined, hunting for a test result that I know is there somewhere but which isn't showing up in my records and is evading all the searches I've tried.

[Ombligo]

Our primary requested a copy of my wife's catscan from the hospital. They provided him a DVD in a format that can only be read by their proprietary software. It's cheaper to get a new scan than a copy of the needed software.

[lost in space]

PeterB, you must have the same providers that I do. I have exactly the same problems. I get printed reports and CDs or DVDs of EVERY visit, lab and imaging session.

Each of my providers on its own is great, but the problems arise when they try to talk to each other. They either use a Dropbox type of file transfer, email, sharing, FAX or some other system. One of them prefers to get stuff on paper or FAX, then scans them to put on their computer.

[davemchine]

I do something similar. I scan and save every assessment and store in a folder by date and description of visit. In addition I keep a spreadsheet listing notable doctor appointments. While recently adjusting my life insurance policy they had many many specific health questions that I was able to answer quickly.

[DP]

On a similar note, law enforcement in one state still cannot access crime records or information from other states. It's improving, but slowly.

It feels like a ridiculous waste of time and space, but I print every test result and file it by provider and date.

For anything more than a quickie X-Ray, I get copies of my scans on CD.

And me, also...

[Yoyodyne ArtWorks]

From Wikipedia:

Epic Systems Corporation, or Epic, is a privately held healthcare software company. According to the company, hospitals that use its software held medical records of 54% of patients in the United States and 2.5% of patients worldwide in 2015.[4]