If ever there was a compelling story in favor of EHR adoption, Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin told it at the 82nd annual AHIMA convention and exhibition.
It took two hurricanes and a fire to drive home the importance of EHRs. Not surprisingly, Gulf Coast states such as Alabama and Louisiana understand that lesson. In truth, we as an industry and a country should not have to experience this kind of devastation and its long-lasting impact to healthcare access and patient safety to embrace the benefits of EHRs.
Clearly, there are privacy and security issues that need to be adequately addressed to ensure the public, patient privacy advocates and all healthcare providers that everyone's information will be handled in a safe manner.
We have all read about privacy breaches and thefts of electronic health data. People forget that paper documents are not more secure. The story Benjamin told of having to dry row after row of paper patient medical records out in the sun should make patients and privacy advocates shudder.
Beyond the officials overseeing HIPAA compliance, was there any outcry about privacy violations at the time? I'm sure there were records so wet they tore and were rendered useless. Paper records reduced to ashes are equally useless. Maybe you or I can recal our procedures and medication list, but the elderly likely cannot.
The question everyone needs to ask themselves is this: If your paper health records are destroyed, will the care a provider renders to you, whether he or she is your primary care physician, OBGYN or someone who you are seeing for the first time, be compromised in any way?
