Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and co-chairman of the federal Health IT Standards Committee, says everything from allergies to diagnoses could be listed online.
A Hub doctor looking to tap into society’s obsession with social media envisions a world where medical tests and diagnoses are tweeted, added to a wiki site or updated using a smartphone.
“We know doctors are using electronic health records, but we need to know, how do you get data from North Boston to South Boston?” said Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and co-chairman of the federal Health IT Standards Committee. “I imagine it would include everything from what your allergies are to diagnoses.”
Halamka, who is also an emergency physician, presented recommendations yesterday to a government advisory group on the creation of websites that mimic social media, allowing doctors to make “daily wiki entries” for patients supplemented by hourly “tweets” on patient condition — all under HIPAA-compliant websites that would protect the information from the public.
Hospitals and doctor offices are moving patient information such as medical history reports, prescriptions, test results and treatments from paper to online storage to comply with electronic health record requirements under Obamacare.
To help make this data easily accessible for doctors and patients, yet still protected, Halamka is suggesting the use of what he calls “social documentation” products to JASON — a group of scientists serving to advise the federal government on science and tech issues. The group is holding a two-day meeting in La Jolla, Calif., that ends today to discuss its April report on the use and transfer of health data.
The group stressed in its report that electronic records should be used to reduce errors, minimize repeats in diagnostic and testing procedures and give physicians the ability to share data with other doctors and their patients.
Halamka’s idea differs from the traditional approach of storing patient-generated data in personal health record systems and doctor-entered information in separate health record databases where data is not easily transmitted among physicians and facilities.
The JASON report concedes there are many barriers that physicians face in digital health record adoption — among them, data transmission. These barriers have prompted doctors like Halamka to pitch innovative ways to make the process easier for patients and doctors alike.
“What we want to make sure is that patients know how their information is being used, how it’s being exchanged, and they need to be assured that all their information is going to continue to be private,” said Peter Ashkenaz of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Halamka also pointed out that while Silicon Valley is the home of technological innovation, Boston remains an international medical mecca.
“You can always assume Boston will be the first to implement pilots of new technologies,” he said.
