Re:The Blockchain Bubble Will Pop, What Next?
by nradov on Monday July 30, 2018 @12:18AM
(#17642018)
In practice the medical records sharing problem has already been solved by leveraging existing standards and integration profiles created by organizations such as HL7, DICOM, IHE, Direct Project, etc. Those solutions aren't yet universally deployed but they are rapidly gaining adoption and do actually work.
Sole practitioner medical offices are dying out as provider organizations consolidate. In general practices almost never just shut down; some other provider organization takes them over and assumes responsibility for the records. The remaining small medical offices don't have the IT capacity to implement sophisticated new data sharing mechanisms anyway.
Giving patients copies of their records — while a good practice in general — doesn't solve this problem. Patients lose their records, forget their passwords, don't understand how to use the systems, etc. That's why most medical records will continue to be shared on a provider to provider or payer (insurer) to provider basis.
Sole practitioner medical offices are dying out as provider organizations consolidate. In general practices almost never just shut down; some other provider organization takes them over and assumes responsibility for the records. The remaining small medical offices don't have the IT capacity to implement sophisticated new data sharing mechanisms anyway.
Giving patients copies of their records — while a good practice in general — doesn't solve this problem. Patients lose their records, forget their passwords, don't understand how to use the systems, etc. That's why most medical records will continue to be shared on a provider to provider or payer (insurer) to provider basis.