http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060226/NEWS01/602260459/1075 By Michelle L. Start mstart @ news-press.com February 26, 2006 Carrying a prescription that he couldn't read and trying to get it filled at a local CVS store, Bonita Springs resident Sean Balke said he looks forward to the day when medical records will be online. "I don't get that many prescriptions, but this one is for back pain," said Balke, 32. "I can't read it." Starting on April 1, the first step toward having all medical records accessible online will begin in Florida. "We'll be rolling it out over the course of the year," said Rob Cronin, spokesman for SureScripts, which is launching the software in 10 states. "By the end of the year, we expect it to be statewide in Florida." Already 75 percent of Fort Myers pharmacies have signed up for the software, which has yet to go live. Cronin said those pharmacies include stores such as Albertsons, CVS, Kash 'N Karry, Publix, Walgreens and a number of independent pharmacies. It's a big first step in a move to allow patients and physicians to monitor and access medical records online. Federal officials hope to launch software for that type of records-sharing by 2013. In this initial step, doctors will be able to file prescriptions through the SureScript system and pharmacists will be able to view a list of the patients' medications, which will provide an additional safety check. Ideally, pharmacists would catch any signs of possible drug interactions, and emergency room doctors would be able to check which medications are prescribed, which officials said will be extremely helpful if a patient is unconscious. Daniel Kinsella, vice president of The Rever Group consulting firm, said the process of writing prescriptions and then having patients obtain them in a retail setting while dealing with insurance, co-payments and record-keeping has been ineffective and tedious. "Physicians wrote prescriptions without knowledge of other medications that the patient was on, other than those that were self-reported," he said. "Pharmacy benefit and Medical Spending Account managers received and processed tons of paper. Patients were exposed to the inconveniences of delivering prescriptions to retail pharmacists, and the burden of tracking and reporting an array of active prescriptions to their physicians at time of service." By using electronic records, patients can benefit from the consolidation of information about all of their medications, prescribed by all of their doctors and the potential for reviewing new prescriptions for potential drug and food reactions, he said. Kinsella also pointed out that in the not-too-distant future, patients will be able to record the date and time that they take medications, ensuring a higher level of compliance with recommended dosage. "I'm not sure if it is a good thing because of privacy issues," said Vincent Mercogliano, 65, of Fort Myers. "If you have your records online, someone can find out which prescriptions you are on." He worried that it could lead to job loss and other possible ramifications. While officials said the online system will have tight security, some experts said there's no way to guarantee complete privacy regardless of whether it is prescription records or more detailed medical histories. "We have to worry about the hackers of the world," said Pati Trites, chief executive officer of Augusta, Mich.-based Compliance Resources. "There have already been some breaches in the pharmacy system." Her company monitors hospitals, doctors offices and other medical professionals to see whether they are in compliance with HIPPA laws. Trites said during a recent survey, only 55 percent of health care providers and 72 percent of insurance companies were in compliance with the federal privacy protection laws. "We have to work on enforcement of tight security," she said. "The law is a year old. They're basically saying we're not compliant with the law." Trites said she's worried that once all medical records go online, patients could be exposed to some severe ramifications if those records become public. "You could have job loss, insurance denials, increasing rates and publicity," she said. "If you have a teacher with AIDS or Hepatitis C, that's protected information. You can come up with all types of scenarios. We have to find a secure way of transmitting and housing that information." _________________________________ InfoSec News v2.0 - Coming Soon! http://www.infosecnews.org
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