After having had long holidays, I was up to my annual, all comprehending medical check. With the information gathered in the first week of college in my head, I quickly realized that the insights of me as a person were already in the doctor’s hands. Due to my newborn curiosity, I asked him: “Doc, can you actually tell me how you doctors share and analyze all that information?”. As he stumbled upon some hesitations and laughed, he answered that I would be amazed if I knew how much information ‘they’ have. And after my online research, I indeed am amazed.
An Electronic Health Record can be described as the passport of any person, but it doesn’t only cover date of birth, nationality, etc. Moreover, it also features (previous) physical and mental problems, prescriptions, medications, visits, and all other medical related actions a person has experienced in his or her life (Hicks, 2019). The difference with modern EHR’s compared to traditional EHR’s lies within its pro-active way of processing information and the way personal EHR’s are being used to improve the medical world (Lebied, 2018). After all, even your personal information contributes to an ongoing development (Colicchio, Cimino, Del Fiol, 2019).
One of the most common technologies being used in healthcare is ‘health tracking’. Mobile apps, watches, sensors and other devices actively send data to EHR systems (Saratchandran, 2019). Despite of what most people think, even (e.g.) Apple’s Smartwatch is being used to collect medical information (Colicchio, Cimino, Del Fiol, 2019). People’s personal information ends online on a global scale, while most of us aren’t aware of it. A reduction of costs is another effect of big data widely being used. By processing personal information and making predictions based on that, personal EHR’s can support hospitals in hiring not too few, but also not too many employees. Also, forecasts and predictions reduce human errors, which in the U.S. only costed $210.7 million dollars last year (Saratchandran, 2019.
Although the above advantages of data in the healthcare industry seem to be beneficial for all of us, they made me starting to think whether we still have any personal information left for ourselves. As I thought that all conversations with my personal doctor were in private, the things being discussed nowadays ‘vanish’ in the online world of the healthcare industry. In my opinion, it is good that we can all contribute to a better healthcare industry by unconsciously sharing personal information. But in the modern online world, where privacy is increasingly in danger, possible negative effects of sharing information should be addressed to everyone, so that each one of us can decide how he or she wants to contribute to this.
Literarure:
Cimino, J., Colicchio, T, Del Fiol, G. 2019, June 3. Unintended Consequences of Nationwide Electronic Health Record Adoption: Challenges and Opportunities in the Post-Meaningful Use Era. Journal of medical internet research. Retrieved from: https://www.jmir.org/2019/6/e13313/
Hicks, J. 2019, September 3. 6 Terms Related to the Electronic Health Record. Retrieved from: https://www.verywellhealth.com/terms-related-to-electronic-health-record-2317141
Lebied, M. 2018, July 18. 12 Examples of Big Data Analytics In Healthcare That Can Save People. Retrieved from: https://www.datapine.com/blog/big-data-examples-in-healthcare/
Saratchandran, V. 2019, January 9. 5 Ways Big Data is Changing the Healthcare Industry. Retrieved from: https://www.fingent.com/blog/5-ways-big-data-is-changing-the-healthcare-industry
Hey Mick,
during my high school period I had a side job at the doctors where I had to digitalize the files of patients. That was just from hardcopies to pdf to read. It’s interesting to see that in less than ten years there has been such a great shift. Personally, I believe that this information sharing is crucial for optimizing healthcare. However, I agree that transparancy and eventuall rules are necessary to maintain the privacy and prevent disasters.