Wow, I sense a lot of anger here.
Couple things you should know.
Almost all hospitals have electronic charting and soon almost all dr's will as well, if they refuse they will be fined and will recieve less money back from the insurance company. You won't have a choice.
As for being secure, it is as secure as the people who are employed in any place be it a doctor, nurse aid, housekeeper, janitor, receptionist etc.
Right now with paper charts any one can go into a doctors office and copy hundreds of SS numbers down. At least with electronic charting it is password protected.
Don't want your SS number given out. No worries we already have it. How? Your Medicare number is often your SS number, if you have Medical Mutual or several other insurances they used to or still do use your social security number as an ID, used to be on your drivers license as well.
I had one older patient yell at me "I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY SS NUMBER" I then asked him for his insurance cards and sure enough he had Medicare and there it was. Almost all doc's office's ask and have always asked for a SS number, why we need it in case of your death to fill out the death certificate. Once we have it on file weather it is 5 years ago or 10 years ago we have it on file. We do our very very best to keep it secure as ours is there as well.
As far as the information on the electronic charts. When you see the heart doc he documents his findings, any changes in your condition and any changes in meds on those charts. Then when you go to your endo he sees what the heart doc wrote and can adjust his findings to that and his recommendations for meds, then next week when you go to the foot doc he see what the heart and endo guy have found, looks at your graphs, test results, meds they gave you and is on the same page with everyone there by giving you superior care. Instead of three doctors working in the dark all three are now seeing what the other is doing and can gauge information on what is best for you there by making sure you are also not recieiving the wrong meds or too many meds.
This is extremely important for people who are seeing many doctors and are taking many different meds and treatments.
People with cancer and their doctors are finding this very helpful I have first hand knowledge of that in our patients as we send test results, lab work, charts and graphs, notes, faxes, phone calls back and forth. It is nice to go on the computer and see just when so and so is having that CAT scan and what the results are and when the MRI is scheduled and who she is seeing next, and what is the next step.
It is time saving and life saving.
As for personal info that you might find too personal, trust me we have heard it all and we don't care about your bowel movement, or the IUD problem or your husbands problem, why because we are busy, we are pros and frankly we heard the same thing last week, yesterday and this morning. Kind of like seeing one naked body you have seen them all.
We are here to work, to help, to heal and then to go home and be with those who we love and who love us.
Originally Posted by momcat
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