Search Here

Five large health IT firms are planning on creating a nationwide medical database that would be available for doctors and medical facilities. The health database will give doctors' access to people's medical history. The database will be particularly useful in hospital emergency rooms where time is valuable. If the database were to exist, it would quickly provide doctors with useful information, such as medical allergies and medical complications. The doctors would then be able to treat the patients more efficiently and prescribe the right kind of medication. In addition, ever since 2009, hospitals and doctors have been moving toward a more digital form of communication, and this database will make a doctor or hospital visit faster and more efficient.

The two head companies that started this plan called CommonWell Health Alliance are McKesson based in San Francisco, CA and Cerner based in Kansas City, MO. The CEOs, Jon Hammergren and Neal Patterson respectively, felt that a health database would be highly beneficial for the medical field.

"We're digitizing the content of an entire industry by automating the electronic health record. Without a national ID and the ability to create true data that can be safely and securely sent between individuals, we are going to introduce new systemic risk back into the system," Billionaire Patterson stated.

The United States is currently the only western country that does not have a national health care ID. The other companies involved in the alliance are Allscripts Health Solutions from Chicago, IL, Athenahealth from Watertown, MA and Greenway Medical Technologies from Carrollton, GA. The company that is notably absent is Epic Systems from Verona, WI that is currently responsible for manufacturing computer systems for the top American academic hospitals.

John Halamka, chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconness Medical center in Boston, MA praised the efforts of the five companies and stated that a health database would greatly improve health care. The non-profit group, Bipartisan Policy Center, conducted a survey and found that 71 percent of physicians felt that one of the biggest hurdles in the medical field is the lack of infrastructure when it comes to communication. The Bipartisan Policy Center was founded in 2007 by four ex-senate majority leaders.

Transitioning to the digital field can be a double-edged sword. Even though it may promise to faster and more efficient, a recent survey revealed that some doctors get overwhelmed by the number of digital alerts that they receive per day (Electronic Screens Distracting Doctors' Attention). A pilot of the program will begin within the next year. The program needs to insure patient privacy and medical value for both patients and doctors before it can fully be implemented.