Paperless medical records

Anne Marie Tiernon/Health Reporter

Indianapolis, Sept. 22, 2005 - "Up the crick without a paddle." That's where 73-year-old John Cecil says he'd be without his extensive medical records. "I don't know what is going on with me. I cannot remember all these dates or all the things. I don't remember all my surgeries," or his medications.

That's crucial information in a crisis and key data on paper records unavailable to doctors after a hurricane or even weeks later to those providing shelter to evacuees, like out at the Indiana fairgrounds.

It's a problem eliminated, some say, by going electronic.

"We ultimately want to make that doctor's office completely paperless." RANAC President Keith Pitzele says the transitions take time, especially in Indiana's smaller practices of ten doctors or less where less than five percent are using electric medical records.

Primary Care Doctor David Blackwell and his partner are the exception, paperless since May. "You've got backup so if there is a disaster you can access them from a different spot, and so if a building goes down, you've go the records."

Do patients ever want to log in and look at their own charts? Dr. Julie Daftari says, "They do, they do that very frequently."

John's prescriptions are sent right to his pharmacy, ready for pick up. His records are transferred to his cardiologist, eye surgeon and even maintained as a history for his children. "I'm trusting them to have all this information at my fingertips when I need it."

Privacy is a concern. RANAC says passwords and firewalls provide security and any access to an electronic medical record is recorded; date, time and password; arguing that with paper anyone could pull or copy a chart and no one would know.

As far as a nationwide network, there are issues with formatting and compatibility. The industry now is actively working on standards to make documents and transfers seamless.