ZDNet just wrote about Dr. Kolodner and his recent report which is good, but we need more than reports. I have been doing a whole lot here reporting on reports! Can we move forward as I think we have won the battle that PHRs are worth their weight here and get the show moving?
You know I try and do my best here to motivate and have my records set up and tell others, but gosh I could sure use some help?
I would really like to hear about others and their experiences too instead of someone else just posting about another report they read, wouldn’t you? We know they are valuable so let’s get some interesting stuff out here besides more reports, it’s getting very boring. I try to provide a mix here of both “Oh Gosh” posts and informative information too, so the PHRs could move from the informative area into the “Oh Gosh” category easily! Let’s get some mentors going here.
I check my web logs and I see folks from Microsoft, Google, NIH, the VA, Homeland Security, the US House, US Senate, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, NASA, many hospitals, physicians, students, many universities, journalists, bloggers,etc. hanging out here, so some input would really be great, as it’s getting old with me talking about mine and my 84 year old mother’s online records. Anyone from any walk of life with their input can serve to be a mentor for others.
Second of all, let’s get the education process in the works.
The Wall Street Journal and Reuters were both kind enough to republish my small rant on how we are so lacking in educating our citizens here and I thank them for the attention hopefully this will bring about. What good is it to put beneficial programs out there related to healthcare without some education in the process, and this is needed from all areas from the CEOs down to the janitors, after all PHRs are for everyone, not just something to continuously talk about and continue to quote reports over and over.
Any CEOs out there have one yet? Any physicians use one yet? Any students? I would really like to have some mentors and see a true endorsement of educating our citizens, something we need to target and make time for. Great that Medicare has the pilot program starting in January in Arizona and Utah for PHRs, but where’s the support, I have not read about any yet? Is this just something we through out there without any education or any ability to supply them with any mentors of those already using a PHR? What gives here?
PHRs can help reduce medical errors, if both patients and physicians understand them. They are “cool” so as any type of administrator you don’t need to worry or feel that you are “uncool” by creating and using one and I hope that paradigm is not lurking out there, but I wouldn’t be against it.
Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault are free so all it costs is your time. The related reading contains many of my prior posts on PHRs for more information to find out who’s incorporating the software vendors, who’s integrating and just some real benefits. With Google Health and HealthVault, if you decide not to keep it, then delete it, nothing lost and everyone might learn something in the process and stop writing about reports about PHRs, it’s getting very boring, so perhaps time for a little learning and action. BD
Kolodner is the national coordinator, health information technology, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and his background makes him a good man to have in that job.
That’s because much of his hands-on experience involves VistA, the VA’s public record health system. He seems to understand the benefits of open source and open standards.
Kolodner has written that this year represents a “tipping point” for the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by doctors and hospitals and Personal Health Records (PHRs) by individuals.
http://healthcare.zdnet.com/?p=1542
Related Reading: (from prior posts and there are a lot here to read up on and see who’s integrating and promoting their use too)