MMRGlobal CEO Bob Lorsch recently told Fox News that his company offered the U.S. government the chance to roll out its MyMedicalRecords personal health records (PHR) platform in lieu of the electronic health record (EHR) system established in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Lorsch said that MMRGlobal offered to charge only $1 per month per family for the PHR. He argued that MyMedicalRecords could have saved taxpayers a significant amount of money. What Lorsch doesn’t say is that while PHRs and EHRs do have some similarities, they are designed for two completely different purposes. EHRs and PHRs are designed to manage the same information. They both store a patient’s comprehensive medical history including information from multiple providers. Also, both types of records are stored in secure, confidential environments.
A PHR, however, is designed to be managed by the patient. MyMedicalRecords is a standalone PHR, which means that it isn’t connected to a provider, to the EHR system or to any health plan’s information system. Patients can download and input their own information as well as add other items that they consider relevant. EHRs, on the other hand, are administered by medical providers. Providers access a single EHR for each patient, and each provider, specialist or lab technician records information within the record. Any provider, including an emergency room physician, can access a patient’s EHR to learn about medical history, medications and other vital information.
The EHR system, when it’s fully interoperable, is also designed to be a source of epidemiological data. In other words, it will help the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to analyze population-wide health data, predict trends and shape healthcare policy. Fox News reporter Dominic Di-Natale used Lorsch’s statement to imply that the Obama administration had rejected a far cheaper alternative to EHRs in favor of a system that paid wasteful reimbursements to hospitals and other providers.
In reality, while a standalone PHR could be a useful tool for patients that want to monitor their own health records, it isn’t designed to be part of an interconnected system. An unconscious patient in the midst of a heart attack can’t hand a PHR over to a doctor. Also, since patients control their own data, a PHR isn’t a reliable tool for epidemiological analysis. Fox also claimed that EHRs are a failure because the system isn’t already up and running. However, the reporter failed to note that interoperable EHRs, also known as Stage 2 of the ACA’s Meaningful Use requirement, aren’t scheduled to start becoming active until the beginning of 2014. Also, they may not be fully interconnected for nearly a decade.
Implementing healthcare reform isn’t as easy as turning on a switch. ACA vocabulary is complicated, but it’s far less complicated than actually implementing the law. ACA has had its problems, but Di-Natale’s analysis appears to be flawed. Former national health IT coordinator Farzad Mostashari summed it up in a tweet: “This story is crap—on so many levels.” source
