An article published yesterday in the Washington Post indicates that most people feel there is a need to make reforms in our health care system. Clearly the mandate for change is in the air. How to make true improvements to our health care system?
Almost all agree that improving access to health care is a good idea and most agree that our health care system could be more efficient.
A good place to start would be the computerization of our health care records in a national database which could be made accesable only to ourselves and our designated health care providers. This would provide our doctors with instant and easy access to a 'centralized chart'. No longer would doctors not be aware of our visits to other doctors and the results of our previous medical tests.
Also a centralized database would could allow us to us programs that might help us get information about any condition we might have online. Just feed in your symptoms and press the send button and24 hours a day we might be able to almost instantly generate a possible list of medical conditions we might have.
Our records could be accessed without actual doctor office visits(not a popular idea with all physicians) by our doctors when it is convenient for them to check them and they could correspond via email with us if that were convenient.
Duplication of tests would become a thing of the past and we would not be required to recount our entire medical history for nurses at emergency rooms when we are sick and unable to remember what day it is let alone every ailment we ever had.
Although security and privacy issues would have to be addressed, a personal medical database for each and every american is an idea whose time has come.
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