Health Data Rights

re: Health Data Rights

Jimmy May — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:33:47 GMT

HL7 may be antiquated, but a friend who works for a company trying to coordinate standards states this is a significant frustration for all manner of providers from physicians to hospitals to insurance companies. Even with "stimulus" money available, orgs are reluctant to invest time in immature systems. However, as you suggest, momentum is gaining.

Microsoft is doing its part. Health Vault is here: www.healthvault.com. MS Amalga is healh care information integration initiative: www.microsoft.com/amalga. Amalga "provides a single point for unified access to the wealth of information present in a healthcare organization".

re: Health Data Rights

Ranga Narasimhan — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:41:35 GMT

I strongly support the idea of healthdatarights. We do server health cheacks and trend analysis for hardware! But, have we got any reports with graphs on our health ? A used car dealer can get our complete credit history with few mouse clicks, but if we are in a emergency room, the doctors have no idea of our health history!

re: Health Data Rights

KKline — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:22:16 GMT

Great comments, Jimmy and Ranga.

I think one of the things that prompted me to write this post is this - have you ever tried to ask your US doctor for all of your medical records? There's about a 95% chance that they will refuse and, according to the current law, that's completely within their rights.

It seems to me that we, the consumer and subject of those records, should be able to see our own information.

Thanks,

-Kev

re: Health Data Rights

Phillip E. Rosen — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:56:07 GMT

Hi Kevin,

I am an SQL Server Newbie and a retired U. S. Marine who works for the VA accessing SQL data cubes from the VA HDR and other data repositories that are located on the VA enterprise network.

I respect your years of IT/SQL knowledge however I disagree with your statement "health care (at least in the USA) is decidedly low-tech, despite much pushing and prodding from our government." because the VA uses an electronic health records system see the article here http://www.maryland.va.gov/publications/newsreleases/2009/04-06-09_NEJMpraisesVAelectronicHealthRecord.asp from the New England Journal of Medicine.

A quote from the article "VA hospitals have used electronic health records for more than a decade with dramatic associated improvements in clinical quality," the study's authors wrote.

The VA also has a Health Data Repository (HDR) "that stores clinically relevant data; serves as storage backbone of Veteran longitudinal health record; ensures clinical decisions made based on all clinical information available. "Access the "OMB Exhibit 300 (Planning/Acquisition) Redaction - 2010 (Form) Health Data Repository - 2010 (Item)" http://www.va.gov/EXHIBIT300/docs/15HDR.pdf, it takes a few moments to load please be patient.

An abstract for Sanford University about the HDR: http://clinicalinformatics.stanford.edu/scci_seminars/05_20_05.html

The community hospitals and healthcare networks/systems may not have what VA has build over many years however they can use VA as a model of how to/or not to build an enterprise ehealth record with a data repository that can be accessed from any VA hospital in the nation.

Best regards,

Phil

rosenpe at gmail.com

re: Health Data Rights

KKline — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:35:54 GMT

Great information, Phillip!

I actually think that you're not disagreeing with me, but that you're pointing out one area of the medical industry that is leading the pack. (Two other good examples are Kaiser Permanante and the Mayo clinic).

These links you've provided are a great indicator of what can be achieved in the wider health care industry. Sadly, most privately owned hospitals (though not all) are lagging badly.

Another challenge for the industry overall is occurring with those hospitals that are computerizing, but are doing it in a vacuum. That means that their database systems are incompatible with anyone else. That's why standards like HL7, as commenter Jimmy May points out, are extremely important no matter how old-fashioned.

Again, great input that helps provide a more complete picture of the entire healthcare ecosystem.

-Kev

re: Health Data Rights

rosenpe — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:02:53 GMT

You're are right Kevin I used the wrong wording and thank you for sending the email to I enjoyed your correspondence.

Phil