National electronic health records

[Raine822]

"As for your body, you will be required to have an "electronic health record", by 2014. They snuck this into one of the "stimulus" bills. The electronic record will include an obesity rating. The information will be required to be on a "national exchange" with only secure access (Hah!). Why (removed UA violation) does your obesity rating have to be on a national exchange? "

This is from an article my husband just found. The article was actually about gold purchases so I included on the relevant part. I am personally quite against this as it goes against my right to privacy IMO. I read some other articles on this and the information will be available-without consent- to agencies such as the CDC and HHS. The obesity rating is to curb childhood obesity but no mention was made of how the records will be used for this purpose. The has already passed but is there a way to start letter writing or something?

[Nazsmum]

All we can do is VOTE

[annethcz]

My husband is an IT professional who works in the area of integrated medical records.

Quite honestly, this isn't something I'm terribly worried about because the industry isn't at all standardized right now. In most areas, your records will not port from one health system to another because not only are the systems not linked, but the actual records are in different formats. While billing is pretty standardized, the rest of the medical record format varies wildly from one place to another. It may be a goal to have this in place by 2014, but my guess is that the health care industry will probably not have measures in place to have this up and running within 4 years.

[Oubliette8]

Does that mean your records would follow you for life? I find that sort of scary. There are some parts of my health history my doctor does not need to know, I would like the right to keep that information from them.

[MrsMike]

You will have the option of choosing whether or not you want to participate:

http://catholiconline.com/health/story.php?id=37491

It appears this has been looming since 2004 after Bush executed an order to get the ball rolling on a national health information network.

Scroll down to #13 here...it gives a little more info:

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs8a-hipaa.htm#13

There is a lot of talk about every American being required to have their BMI recorded as part of this electronic health system. This is nothing new. BMI is calculated using height and weight, which is already part of your traditional medical record. Now, I think the use of BMI as an indicator of health is bunk. My point here is that BMI is already part of your current health record and it's not something to worry about with the coming electronic heath records.