Push for Web-based health records launched

Computerworld - A nonprofit foundation that's aiming to bolster consumer adoption rates of electronic health records is launching pilot tests of the technology in Canada and the U.S.
The Health Record Network Foundation (HRN), a joint venture of Durham, N.C.-based Duke University's medical and business schools, this month disclosed plans to launch a pilot program with a Toronto-based health system to create a portal where patient health information would be accessible over the Internet.
Under the program, patient records will be stored on HRN servers. Patient approval would be required to store the records on the server and make them accessible to others. "Unless consumers are actively engaged, even if you build a network, it doesn't mean it will be used," said Brian Baum, HRN's CEO.
The venture is still evaluating content management and database technology to use in the system.
HRN is also finalizing plans for a statewide pilot program in Wyoming and is in discussions with other states.
Most efforts to extend the reach of electronic health records today focus on creating standards that link IT systems in physicians' offices, hospitals and insurance companies. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other organizations are hammering out standards for such a system.
'Health Care Internet'
In contrast, Baum said, HRN plans to build on the pilot projects to form a "health care Internet" where authorized physicians and other users can access the health care history of all patients in the system.
Information that would be stored in the system could include a child's inoculation records, the health care history of an aging parent, prescription data and lab results, Baum said.
In Canada, HRN has teamed up with Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre to test the HRN model with about 100 patients.
The pilot program will add select elements of internal computerized patient records to the HRN portal that may need to be accessed by other health care providers, said Sam Marafioti, vice president and CIO at the Toronto-based teaching hospital.
In Wyoming, a health subcommittee in the state legislature has approved a pilot test with HRN, and the state is now waiting for about $1.75 million needed to fund the effort, said Anne Ladd, executive director of the Wyoming Healthcare Commission. Ladd said the program should be less expensive than other systems.
However, Ladd noted that some physicians and health plans in the state have expressed concerns about the accuracy and completeness of the data that would be stored in the portal.
In addition, theplan doesn't overcome the privacy concerns that have long dogged efforts to build electronic medical records programs.
Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, a Washington-based health research center, said that if consumers were demanding electronic health records, then everyone would already be equipped with a memory stick with their data stored on it.
"People intuitively understand health care is not like your banking information - the IRS and my boss know how much money I make," she said. "When you combine making it easier to get data with the current weak law, that is a recipe for invasion of privacy."

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