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Sadly, even countries with universal healthcare systems don't have universal health informatics systems (the NHS is a prime example — they spent £12B trying to

Sadly, even countries with universal healthcare systems don't have universal health informatics systems (the NHS is a prime example — they spent £12B trying to build an integrated system [1]). Lots of countries attempt, including the US — HIPAA was actually originally about data portability [2], and we just spent another $40B [3]. Thus far only smaller countries have had success with integrated health IT systems [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Connecting_for_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Connecting_for_Health [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act#Title_I:_Health_Care_Access.2C_Portability.2C_and_Renewability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_a... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Information_Technology_for_Economic_and_Clinical_Health_Act#Meaningful_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Information_Technology_... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Denmark#eHealth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Denmark#eHealth

herman5 9y ago
It's frustrating that this problem is more of a political labyrinth than a technology endeavor.
- troyastorino 9y ago
  Definitely true. In the US, because fax and phone were carved out in HIPAA as not being ePHI, they have this special protected status that makes it totally cool for providers to fax records around, but sending emails something that risks jail time :/ I wouldn't underestimate the technological barriers to making interoperable health record systems actually useful. There are a lot of different kinds of medical information (SNOMED CT, the best ontology for healthcare, has >1M concepts!), and the best way to structure that information is an unsolved problem. There are lots of different ways out in the wild (complicated by there being lots of half-assed EHRs that were just made to grab incentive money), and the standards that are out there don't really help things (they are so broad that basically every EHR implements their own "flavor" of the standard).

herman5 9y ago

It's frustrating that this problem is more of a political labyrinth than a technology endeavor.

troyastorino 9y ago
Definitely true. In the US, because fax and phone were carved out in HIPAA as not being ePHI, they have this special protected status that makes it totally cool for providers to fax records around, but sending emails something that risks jail time :/ I wouldn't underestimate the technological barriers to making interoperable health record systems actually useful. There are a lot of different kinds of medical information (SNOMED CT, the best ontology for healthcare, has >1M concepts!), and the best way to structure that information is an unsolved problem. There are lots of different ways out in the wild (complicated by there being lots of half-assed EHRs that were just made to grab incentive money), and the standards that are out there don't really help things (they are so broad that basically every EHR implements their own "flavor" of the standard).