In a continued effort to encourage the adoption of health records, the Federal Government has mandated additional requirements be added by companies that develop Electronic Health Record (EHR) software used by both doctors and hospitals. These new requirements known as “stage II” meaningful use are underway and must be completed by each EHR company by no later than 12/31/2013.
One of the most important new requirements of meaningful use - stage II will be the requirement that all doctors offer the ability to electronically export and import health data. This would enable a doctor to import data from another doctor or from a patient. This new mandate will eliminate the need for patients to the fill out the same health history forms each time they visit a new doctor or specialty. For example, if a patient visits his or her primary care doctor and is told by their doctor that they should see a Cardiologist then the Primary Care doctor can electronically send the patient’s health history on file to the Cardiologist. This new mandate has the opportunity to streamline the exchange of health data between doctors but leaves your doctor in control of whether he or she wants to exchange your health data electronically.
Beginning January 01, 2014 it is highly recommended that you speak to your doctor about his or her intentions in providing this service for you. Since each company that provides Electronic Health Record software will engineer their own software version in the exchange of data, not all doctors will find the electronic exchange of data to be fast and efficient. In these cases many doctors may simply pass on the option of sending your data electronically to the referring doctor. The key to compliance with each doctor is only “having” the ability to exchange data and not actually exchanging your health data. The more educated a patient is on their health data and the rules in regards to the exchange of health data will end up saving the patient a lot of time and aggravation when they visit a new doctor’s office.
The core data that would be most helpful to another doctor would be contained in a file called your “CCD” or Continuity of Care Document. This electronic file would include your health data such as current and past medications, allergies, problem list, medical diagnosis and lab data results. If your doctor is using today’s technology, he or she can forward your CCD document to any other doctor you would be seeing and it would eliminate the need for you to write down your current health history any time your visit a new doctor. When you complete your visit with the specialist, your new health data such as new medications, new lab results and any new diagnosis could be sent back electronically to your primary care doctor. Upon your next visit to your primary care doctor, he or she would have the most current health data on file for you.
Staying informed and up to date with all the changes recorded in your electronic health record is a critical step in ensuring you always receive the best care available. When treating patients, doctors rely on the most current health data to make critical medical diagnosis. As the leader in providing online access to health records, ViewMyHealthRecords.com will continue to lead the market and focus our efforts in developing software to make accessing patient health records fast, secure and efficient. Take control of your health records and ensure that all data recorded in your health record is accurate. If your doctor is not currently providing online access to your health records then request that they contact ViewMyHealthRecords.com and catch up with today’s technology.