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Saving Electronic Health Record Interoperability?

By D. Kellus Pruitt DDS

If HHS successfully persuades Americans to use happy names for its bad ideas, will the cheap trick save electronic health record interoperability which is critical to the success of Obamacare?

Healthcare Lexicon 

According to the government’s modernized healthcare lexicon, doctors have been demoted to “providers,” insurance companies, including Medicare/Medicaid, have been promoted to “payers,” and patients’ position in the hierarchy has diminished from “principals” to “stakeholders” – a rank on par with 3rd parties such as insurers, HHS and other unaccountable parasites.

Wall of Shame

Ominously, HHS recently changed the contentious name “Wall of Shame” to a more innocuous“ breach reporting tool,” to describe the public list of data breaches involving the medical records of more than 500 patients. It turns out that the growing list of major data breaches is unexpectedly shaming  far too many providers and payers – including Medicare/Medicaid. Imagine that!

In fact, since Americans’ growing disgust with privacy breaches threatens the very success of Obamacare, there is evidence that HHS has turned to betraying its lawful obligation to the nation by hiding breaches from those who are most vulnerable – Americans.

HIPAA Failure

The half-baked plan to shame providers who experience data breaches – perhaps through no fault of their own – is not working out like HHS had hoped. Due to HIPAA’s abysmal failure to halt data breaches, the Wall of Shame has become a national embarrassment and an obstacle to EHR adoption. I expect the public listing of major breaches to be quietly scrapped soon in favor of keeping patients in the dark concerning their risks of identity theft.

Dentistry 

In dentistry, on the other hand, common sense as well as market resistance evidently caused HHS and other stakeholders to give up trying to prohibit use of the 8 syllable “electronic dental records” in favor of the 14 syllable “electronic health records for dental practices.”

Nevertheless, holdouts (including Dissent Doe) still occasionally feel it is important to correct this dentists when I use “EDR” instead of “EHR.” You got to love ‘em.

Assessment 

Transparent silliness suggests that HHS is failing in its duties. Due to lack of accountability, we can expect EHRs and EDRs to become even more expensive and more dangerous, possibly bringing an end to Obamacare.

Conclusion

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Filed under: Information Technology, Pruitt's Platform | Tagged: ACA, Darrell K. Pruitt DDS, dental records, Dissent Doe, eDRs, EHRs, electronic dental records, electronic medical records, HIPAA, ObamaCare, PP-ACA | 23 Comments »