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Health Care Reform
August 22, 2009 |
Reform health care. It’s one of the items on the President’s to-do list. But
how to do it? Possibly through technology.
“The reason there is a push to move us to electronic record adoption in this county
is because we systematically can’t change health care and reform health care without
it,” says Mike Smith.
Smith is the Chief Information Officer for Lee Memorial Health System. He and his
staff have spent the last 10 years transitioning from paper files to digital files.
“We have the possibility of truly having one record for one patient. It’s a really
profound opportunity to really enable a distinctively different, higher quality,
more cost effective care delivery. And the whole country is trying to do it and
it’s in our grasp here,” adds Smith.
Here’s how the system will help you down the road. Whenever you visit a doctor,
an outpatient facility, or an emergency room in the Lee Memorial Health System network,
the results of your visit will be filed in your record. That record will then be
accessible to any medical personnel within the network.
“In many cases, we in this community are better positioned to do
that than just about anybody else in the country, because many areas in the country have a fragmentation
of the providers. We have more providers together and have the opportunity because
what we already have in place,” explains Smith.
Lee Memorial Health System hopes to have the entire medical records program functioning
at every facility in the next few years. |
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