Ophthalmology Patient Portal and Online Communication Editorial

The Ghost of Health Information Technology Past

Happy New Year!

The year 2011 will bring many changes, but particularly in the field of health information technology (HIT). Among other changes, the Meaningful Use (MU) era will begin and many providers will qualify for the first of their annual incentive payments from the HITECH Act of 2009.

The IT upgrade…….a public health bonanza

Last fall I wrote in this forum about the business case behind the HITECH Act’s information technology upgrade. I focused on the profitability of shifting routine patient tasks to a patient portal. Patients would be able to make appointments, register and pay bills using a web based, self service format. In addition, providers could efficiently send patients their clinic visit and health summaries as required by MU. Bottom line—better service and lower staffing costs. But there are also big time public health implications that occur by digitizing our medical records—the ability to unlock a trove of observational data on greater

 Paul C. Seel, MD, MBA
 Vice President & Medical
 Director
 
 Sophrona Solutions
 Minneapolis, MN

than 300 million patients.

The Fountain of Youth….perhaps

Juxtaposed against the grand vision of a digitized national health care network is the reality of the chart room—the ghost of HIT past:

Buried in thousands of offices across the US, written on paper, are literally the secrets of life…perhaps even the Fountain of Youth!

At least we no longer bleed patients….but

By digitizing the health care records of the US it becomes feasible to collect a zillion data points, organize them, slice and dice them, to yield a trove of observational data and the knowledge as to whether what we do as a profession actually works! And asking what works isn’t that crazy if you believe the British Medical Journal’s data that only 11% of current treatments have actually been proven to work¹. This leaves the vast majority that at best might be ineffective but at worst could be dangerous and harmful. One doesn’t need much historical perspective to believe that future physicians will shake their heads in amazement at some of our contemporary treatments, much as we do for the practice of therapeutic bleeding and other therapies used by our predecessors.

So if yours is one of the many practices still utilizing a chart room, gaze into the clutter and think about the grand vision behind the HITECH Act and the knowledge all of these rooms of paper may eventually yield.

¹http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp

Paul C. Seel, MD, MBA
Vice President & Medical Director
Sophrona Solutions
Email: pseel@sophrona.com