Alaska Electronic Health Record Initiative

The other day I was invited to go to a focus group today. I only knew it had something to do with health. I had never been to a focus group before, so I thought it would be interesting. Plus they offered lunch and $25.
We got a presentation about the Alaska Electronic Health Record Initiative. We learned that this is being promoted by a couple of groups I'd never heard of. Alaska Chart Link and the EHR Alliance are putting together a plan for electronic health care records in the state of Alaska. They had a grant or two as did 34 other states for this. We were told how this was going to improve:

The quality of health care by

• improving timely access to records
• increasing health safety
• decreasing health costs
• increasing access to care
• increasing the health of Alaskans in general
• increasing patient privacy and records

There were nine of us around the table. Mostly over 40, probably 50, though there were several younger folks too. A number of people were involved with health care.

Finally, after about half an hour, we were asked what we thought. Records security was probably the biggest concern. Who would have control? How can you say these are secure? Well, this is inevitable so I'm glad someone is doing it right. These were various reactions.

Then they had us looking at a couple of different logos to get our reactions.

There was a lot more talking to us than I expected. In part they were trying to get the idea across of what Electronic Health Record stuff was about. We did have a pretty lively group and I think everyone spoke up at least once.

No pictures, didn't seem appropriate.

Afterward, I learned that one of the groups was a physician group and I knew (and respect) two of the doctors on the list. Their concern, I was told, was that this was coming inevitably, and the doctors wanted to frame a system that was set up for the benefit of doctors and patients rather than health care institutions and insurance companies. That put a totally different spin on it, which should have been part of the presentation. After all, I do like the convenience of atm machines and being able to get money from anywhere in the world. And I like being able to book my own airline flights and get my boarding pass on my computer. So if electronic health records are coming, it would be better to have doctors and patients having a strong say in how they are structured. But, it's all in the details and you can be sure the large health systems, insurance, and drug companies are going to want to shape this in ways that increase their profits. Michael Moore, are you on top of this one?

Here's a link to a pdf file on this.