Surescripts recently put out the results of a survey they did on Connected Care and the Patient Experience. If you’re like me, whenever you see a survey, you want to see the questions and raw data from the survey. The good news is that Surescripts has shared the survey result data here.
We could dig into a lot of the data, but this chart was the one that really stood out to me:
No doubt Surescripts has a bit of bias when it comes to wanting to get organizations to share healthcare data. They started with sharing prescription data, but they’re working on sharing much more data. This Surescripts bias aside, aren’t we all biased towards wanting the right information to be shared in the right place at the right time? That’s the nirvana of healthcare data that all of us as patients want.
Put another way, can I please fill out a health history form one time and never have to fill one out again?
This is a feeling that resonates with so many patients. It’s felt particularly strong when you fill out essentially the same paperwork possibly on the same day for 2 specialists that both work for the same company. Brutal to even consider, but it’s the reality of healthcare data sharing today.
I understand many of the reasons why this isn’t happening and it is a very complex problem with no easy solutions. There are a lot of organizations and people involved and many of them aren’t motivated to change. Change is hard when you’re motivated. Change is almost impossible when you’re not motivated.
Back to the graphic above, I love how it frames the issue. The challenge of poor information is bad on multiple levels including: slowing down the patient visit and improper care. The graphic above illustrates so well how much better we can do at getting the right information to the doctor. Doing so will make a doctor more efficient and help them provide better care.
And what is wrong with the patient carrying a single sheet of paper listing his/her allergies/current meds/current and active medical conditions/other doctors they see/ recent hospitalizations???
If you wanted to be digital, put it on a thumb drive. Paper works just nicely.
Time for the patient to demonstrate personal responsibility.
To SGC; I’d love to see that – but you would have to have (at least for the thumb drive) common formats. The piece of paper is fine, but where would it come from and how would it get updated, and oh – how long might that sheet of paper have to be? We’d all like to see, for instance, an ability like you describe that could be kept up to date and be compatible with all the EHR’s and PM systems out there, so a new patient could either walk in with a flash drive or OCR capable print out and have it all sucked in, or better yet do that on the practice’s or hospital’s web site before coming in. Or on arrival give ‘reception’ a URL and provider login info so they can suck in the data from a central site.
Indeed, this is a huge part of what we want the EHR world to be.
Ron
To R Troy:
A standard text file (*.txt) would be an ideal common format, if going the digital route. The patients would be responsible for updating their data/information. Physicians could tell/show them what data are most useful to keep. They don’t need every CBC or CMP ever done. Active medical problems, allergies, current meds etc etc. Not much paper needed for the basic information needed in treating patients. And, talking with the patient goes a long way. Sounds very inter-operable.
Whether that works depends on the complexity of the patient’s condition. Great for a person in good health. Not so easy for a patient with multiple issues that may vary over time. For one patient I know, certain blood counts frequently done can show the effects of a certain disease on that patient over time, and that’s only a small part of that patient’s complex and lengthy history, let alone precautions that need to be taken with certain treatments. Paper file for just one of that patient’s doctors is a couple inches thick, and there is much that must not be left out of the record the patient is carrying.