Speaking as a practicing U.S. physician, one of the biggest barriers to quality care is lack of timely communication between various providers of health services. Remarkably, the advent of electronic health records (EHR) has made this problem even worse, as pertinent information about patient care is buried in reams of redundant filler information, each EHR vendor uses proprietary data formats incompatible with other vendors, and regulations regarding privacy restrict the flow of information, all to the detriment of quality, timely patient care. Also, the complexity of EHR and the ever-changing regulatory and insurance environment make it impossible for individual practicioners to customize their UI to maximize their effectiveness. There is no centralization or standardization of even the most fundamental medical data structures.
I think that a Distributed /Encrypted EHR system could solve this problem, if it were widely adopted. The advantages I see are firstly that electronic information would be highly encrypted in a distributed blockchain-like structure, thus it could be accessed easily from anywhere but only by providers with the keys. This would solve the communication piece while maintaining privacy. The open source project development would allow for both standardization of medical data structure and customizability of UI. The exorbitant cost and waste of multiple incompatible proprietary systems could be eliminated, and quality metrics would become more accessible to patients and payors.
It would be great to hear from others about how to implement such a project.
