Lost Charts – A Major Plus for an EMR

Indulge me for a moment as a share a funny story from my past which illustrates another plus for EMRs.

My wife suddenly lost her hearing just before we got married. She was a poor college student who was stupid for not having insurance. Either way, they put her on steroids, did the MRI, did some extensive sound tests and sent her to an ear specialist(excuse the lack of proper terminology) and they basically said sorry sometimes it just happens. We can do nothing for you.

While I’m not sure the details of the next part of the story, but the end result is my wife ended back at her house with her chart in hand. She recounted the experience and told me that she took her chart with her since she there was nothing they could do for her. At the time my response was “Good!” I imagine I probably asked if that was ok and if they said anything and I vaguely remember her saying something about them giving it to her to look at. I don’t remember her pulling it off the door which would sound more like stealing. Now I would be much more concerned.

Either way, she has the chart today. I’ve always wanted to request her medical record from that provider and see what they do. This could never happen with an EMR. Even if a user walks out with the computer they would have to have some sort of authentication to see any record.

Chalk one up for EMR.

And no, I’m not sure what the HIPAA implications are for my wife or the doctor that “loses” the chart.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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