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Friday, March 30, 2012

Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records by Doctors

In the past few weeks, my mother, mother-in-law, son, and daughter have had doctors' visits in which the doctor gave them a number of instructions. In each case, they would have benefited from a printed list of doctors' orders, which should be well within the capabilities of their doctors' systems. They won't go to the Internet to see their medical records, because of the seniors' limited use of the internet, or adolescent disinterest.

Yet our dog's veterinarians print out their orders routinely and immediately, which can be very helpful.

Let's insist on getting medical care as good as our dogs get! Stay tuned to this page for instructions on how to give your input to the Federal rule-makers who are now in Stage 2 of defining the minimum requirements for a doctor's "meaningful use" of an electronic health record. Your input will be helpful now, and in setting the agenda early on for Stage 3.

Our comments will pertain to Sections 170.314(e)(1) and 170.314(e)(2) of RIN 0991-AB82 of the proposed rule, as noted at 77 FR 13838-41 and 77 FR 18856-57.

You can see the entire specifications by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for meaningful use.

2 comments:

Robin Eichert said...

Love this post as I do think there is so much we can learn from dogs and veterinary care. I can't think of a more important reason than patient safety (of humans and dogs) to do such a simple, low-cost process that could make a huge difference in outcomes. It makes such sense that I mentioned your advice in my own blog post this morning!

James Guertin said...

You have a point on how we can benefit from a printed list of doctor’s orders. Some people get confused when flooded by spoken instructions from the doctor. It would help if a patient has a neatly printed copy of every instruction his doctor gave to refer to once in a while. People tend to forget some details which are only relayed verbally, and a visual reminder would prove useful in this case.