At "AMA And Almost 100 Physician Societies Sound Off To CMS On Health IT" I referred to concern held by AMA and ~94 other medical specialty societies about comments overheard from senior government officials that:
complex measures and high reporting thresholds are needed to discourage EP's - Eligible Professionals (i.e., eligible for government EHR subsidies) from switching back to the use of paper during this transition to EHRs.
Such reporting requirements could not only 'discourage' a switch back to paper even if these 'government-approved' EHR's turned out to be a clinical and/or operational nightmare (which I feel is likely if not unavoidable based on numerous writings at this blog and here), but also could force event those planning to stay with paper and endure the "penalty" for doing so to move to computer systems. The human resources required to satisfy truly ominous reporting requirements via paper records might simply be too burdensome.
This could be perceived as an ingenious and devious plan to establish control of healthcare providers via IT and data. (He who controls the data, controls the playing field.)
Privacy activist Dr. Deborah Peel shares related concerns as expressed in a Wall Street Journal article yesterday "Your Medical Records Aren't Secure."
Along the lines of control, now there's this, recently posted on the Drudge Report:
Shocking Audio: Rep. Dingell Says ObamaCare Will Eventually �Control the People� (link)
I don't care which "people" Dingell's referring to - 300 [sic] Americans (he left out "million"), physicians, insurers, etc. Our government has no business discussing "controlling" anyone.
Ideology aside, the control mentality of government over medicine, facilitated by healthcare IT, is starting to rear an ugly head. I'm afraid this phenomenon might get really out of hand in the very near future.
-- SS
Addendum: there appears to be a healthcare IT industry sockpuppet writing in the comments thread at the aforementioned WSJ article by Dr. Peel, under the especially inappropriate nom de blog "Hank Dagny." The usual dismissal of physician concerns about HIT, unqualified statements, ad hominem attacks, and other games typical of an industry shill occur throughout that comment thread.
See my reply at this link. (It takes a moment to load the WSJ comment thread.)
Also see this summary of a Canadian analysis of electronic health record security at the blog of security technologist Bruce Schneier. Hat tip to Joseph Arpaia, MD.
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