MMRGlobal, Inc. (fka MMRF)

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Should EMRs Help Patients Retrieve Medical Records?

As often as not, patients who need to retrieve paper medical records from hospitals go through a painful process, one which is not much easier than it was before EMRs were introduced in hospitals.

I found this out myself recently when I attempted to retrieve a medical record for one of my children from a large hospital in my metro area. I started by reaching out to the health information management department — where it took three separate calls before I connected with a staff member. Then I was informed that the despite the paper-free hospital environment, I would have to wait two weeks before I could lay hands on the medical record, as the staff was swamped.

This would have struck me as comical if it wasn’t such an unfortunate situation. Without HIEs in place universally across the hospital world, wouldn’t it make sense if the EMR helped produce the paper copies of records needed everywhere in a universal fashion?

Yes, I realize that EMRs are optimized for care during the hospital visit, and such is necessary to get the job done. That being said, I could easily see using some of the technology hospitals already have in place to make EMR records retrievable by caregivers and patients.

After all, at least some hospitals already have kiosks in place that allow patients to pay bills. Couldn’t a modification of such kiosk allow patients to pay for their records fees, order the records for a given patient, sign electronically to give permission for such a printout and get the records into the mail on the back end — if not straight into their hands?

Sure, I know HIPAA issues arise when you’re trying to automate the dispensing of private health information, but at least until HIEs are everywhere, it’s a problem that needs to be handled. After all, the reality is that patients need to carry print records all over the place to get decent care. What’s the point of urging patients to engage with their medical records data if simply retrieving hard copies of them is such an awkward chore?

I know there was some debate about this in meaningful use. Hopefully once the future stages of meaningful use are in place, getting your records from the EHR will be a much faster process than it is today.

http://www.hospitalemrandehr.com/2013/05/21/should-emrs-help-patients-retrieve-medical-records/?utm_source=Hospital+EMR+and+EHR&utm_campaign=31aa55b10d-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ad21ba4-31aa55b10d-60795937