In other words if you don't want your new doctor to know about your HIV
or abortion or other items, you could just leave them out. That seems
like a rather bad choice to me when it comes to having your doctor know
what he needs to know to treat you. And the justification is ludicrous.
I noticed that Drudge had a report that OCaresforyourfatbehind excludes
HIV and abortions as required to be included in the medical info in the
database. Upon reading the article, it notes that:
CNSNew.com followed up: "So, when it says a 'test result,' if they did
an HIV test they wouldn't have to put it in the record?"
"It's between the doctor and the patient," said Blumenthal.
CNSNews.com asked: "So what does have to go in there?"
"The information that the patient and the physician agree needs to be in
the record," said Blumenthal.
CNSNews.com asked: "So you can say, 'I don't want this in my health
record, I don't want that in my health record, in my EHR'"?
Blumenthal responded: "Exactly the same thing in the paper world would
pertain in the electronic world."
Before speaking with Blumenthal, CNSNews.com asked the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) via email whether abortions and STDs
must be included in the new EHRs, and if abortions and STDs need not be
included what other surgical procedures and diseases could be excluded
from the EHRs. If in fact abortions and STDs could be excluded from the
EHRs, CNSNews.com also asked HHS to point out where specifically the law
exempted abortions, STDs or any other procedures or diseases from being
included in the records.
Peter Garrett, the spokesman for HHS's Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology, responded by email.
"Nothing in the HITECH electronic health record regulations or in our
policies touches on or requires the recording of any particular type of
health information in a particular patient's personal health record,"
Garrett said in an e-mail.
"That is between the doctor and patient," Garrett wrote. "The EHR
incentive program is a voluntary program. If a physician chooses to
participate, they are not required to record any specific type of health
information and the physician needs the patient's consent in order to
record any of their personal health information. As with all medical
records, protecting the privacy of patients' heatlh information is a top
priority and informational privacy will continue to be protected as EHRs
become more widely used."
The way I'm reading this bureauspeak is that you and your doctor can
agree to not include certain information, but that the doctor will be
paid bonuses to include all information, so exactly what assurance does
the patient have that the doctor will do what is in the patient's vs.
the doctor's best interests? And what verification does the patient have
that the doctor complied with the "leave it out" request?
What good is the medical database for analyzing and devising who gets
what treatment (death panel) if the full info is not there? Since HIV is
most likely to be "not included" information, when an HIV positive
patient seeks treatment for Sarcosi's Carcinoma or pneumonia (for
example) how will the medical treatment be affected? What about a person
who's BMI is high and has a diagnosis of heart disease?
Both situations are supposedly caused by the underlying medical problem
(HIV or fatness) but only the fat person has their behavior (in
continuing to be fat) held against them and possibly denied treatments
due to their behavior?
Posted by: Stephanie | July 23, 2010 at 02:47 PM
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