The clipboard of paper forms that for decades has been a standard part of Americans’ doctor visits may soon be a thing of the past.
Federal authorities who oversee health technology have set a deadline for December for the health care industry to support smartphone apps, like Apple Health, that store records electronically.
Their goal is to have patients use their phones to electronically share records with a doctor’s office or hospital — without a pen and paper, if they choose.
“Patients ought to be able to use the app of their choice,” said Micky Tripathi, who’s helping to put the federal rules in place as the Biden administration’s national coordinator for health information technology.
“Every patient has the deep frustration of going to a hospital and they give you a clipboard and you have to fill out all the information, and then you go to another part of the same hospital and they give you the clipboard again,” Tripathi said.
Paper forms have stood out as a stubborn relic in the medical field as technology has raced ahead in other industries. Few people write as many paper bank checks as they used to, and faxes went out of fashion a couple of decades ago.
But lists of medications, immunizations, past surgeries and other vital health information are still sometimes delivered on paper.
Experts say there are a number of reasons why the health care industry has dragged its feet. Doctors often haven’t seen a reason to make such an expensive change, and it took years for health industry working groups — including tech giants Apple, Google and Microsoft — to agree on technical specifications.
Feb. 8, 202203:22
Now, billions of dollars in subsidies and a 2016 federal law that mandated a national standard for sharing electronic health records have helped to change the industry’s mind and put more records on people’s smartphones.
“That’s the way that our entire life is governed now, on our mobile phones. Health care is now moving toward that,” said Ryan Howells, a principal at Leavitt Partners, a consulting firm that is heading up an industry group on the subject.
As recently as 2008, only 9 percent of hospitals had an electronic records system that met a federal baseline of functionality, according to a government analysis. By 2015, that was up to 84 percent.
Paper isn’t going away entirely. People who can’t or don’t want to use phone apps won’t have to. But medical offices will at least have to support electronic transfers under a standard known as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or FHIR.
The deadline to comply is Dec. 31, a deadline that federal authorities reiterated in a blog post this month.
Some offices already allow patients to share their records electronically, and many patients already check in for appointments and fill out forms online. Apple nudged the industry forward in 2018 when it adopted what’s now a uniform standard, and it lists about 800 health care institutions that support sharing via its Apple Health app. A similar app, CommonHealth, was developed by universities and nonprofits for Android users, and there are other competitors.
One remaining question is how strictly regulators will enforce the mandate, especially during a pandemic when many health care workers are already stretched thin and there’s some resistance to digital records for vaccines.
Several medical trade groups asked federal regulators in a letter last month to use “enforcement discretion” and not penalize providers until there is more guidance. Regulators already pushed back deadlines because of Covid-19.
“In this time of pandemic, I worry that a lot of smaller doctor’s offices don’t have the bandwidth to know this is even going on. Most of us are just up to our necks in the pandemic,” said Dr. Sterling Ransone, a physician in Deltaville, Virginia, and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Ransone said he’s concerned about physicians being burdened with software costs, but he said the academy supports standardization because it will address logistical problems that have festered for decades.
“We couldn’t get our computers to talk to each other,” he said. “From a physician’s standpoint, it got to be really frustrating.”
Medical professionals have expressed concern about the everyday impact when information such as test results is a few finger taps away. Should a patient learn about a test result from an app without a doctor or nurse present to give advice? What if a patient wants part of their record transferred to a new provider, but not all of it? Who will be blamed if a hacker obtains sensitive information through a security flaw?
Regulators have carved out some exceptions where providers can block the release of information — including to prevent harm to a patient or for security — and have set up websites to answer questions from patients, medical offices and others ahead of the December deadline.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
