Julie Norris — 26 September 2004
Medical Records at Your Bank
Almost daily, it becomes clearer that if we don’t take care of our own healthcare needs nobody else will. By healthcare needs, I’m not just referring to eating and drinking right, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly, I’m including Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSAs) and managing medical records.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 20 financial groups offer HSAs. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation reports that one million accounts will be opened by the end of 2004.
HIPAA regulations have given patients more control over their medical records. More patient control has lead to medical staff expecting patients to haul their records from appointment to appointment.
Last week, I was discussing healthcare information storage with David Spellmeyer, Ph.D. from IBM’s Almaden Research Center. Dr. Spellmeyer mentioned medical record banking figuratively and I thought no let’s think about it literally.
If financial groups are offering HSAs then why not offer Medical Record Accounts (MRAs). It’s so logical! Today, medical record warehousing has been left up to healthcare providers, insurers and technology companies. Sure the fore mentioned keepers of medical records understand medicine, insurance and technology but they aren’t working together to develop standards for integrating disparate information, keeping it secure and easily accessible. The bottom line is that patients are not considered consumers.
Financial groups, let’s call them good old fashion banks, could be the answer. Banks understand consumers. They’ve had to in order to win in a commodity market. We all know that banks are highly regulated and have been for decades. Citibank, Fidelity and Bank of America, just to name a few, have spent millions of dollars perfecting systems to insure that our finances and identities are secure. They’ve convinced Congress and the Supreme Court that online banking is good. International standards have been developed for the automatic access and transfer of assets. Why not include MRAs? Just imagine withdrawing or transferring all or part of your medical record as needed. No more entering your doctor’s office and being asked:
“Do you have your records?”
“No, I thought your office requested them.”
“Well, we don’t have them. It will take 5 business days to retrieve them and 5 weeks for another appointment.”
Sound familiar?
If the banking industry takes on this task, we could potentially store years of family medical records in single or separate accounts. Within MRAs medical histories could be securely kept. Even the health records of biological fathers and mothers that choose to remain anonymous could be accessed.
Who do you think understands consumers, security, implementing standards and easy access to personal data? Are there other organizations that could manage MRAs?
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