Six in 10 Americans don’t believe that their medical records or personal information will remain confidential if they are stored and made accessible online, according to a recent survey on health-related issues conducted by NPR, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard School of Public Health.
More than that, 76 percent of those surveyed believe that an unauthorized person could gain access to their electronically stored and shareable health records.
This is good news in disguise:
1. 3/4 of the American public surveyed (1,238 randomly selected participants over 18) is being very realistic about challenges with privacy/security related to EHRs and PHRs.
2. Reflects larger trend towards sharing, less "confidentiality" online (although privacy, security, and confidentiality are all different but interconnected metastasized issues to consider and confront).
3. Americans as a whole are being more pragmatic than Congress (shocker!) about the potential of EHRs (standing alone, magic-bullet style) to 'save' healthcare... "22 percent of those surveyed felt that the overall cost of healthcare in this country would go down if one were adopted."
I'd like to see this survey compared to a similar survey performed, say, 3 years after Citibank offered online banking. Or comparatively reviewed when to articles and surveys about Ebay and PayPal.
The scary part:
"Half of respondents reported that their physicians do not currently enter health information into a computer while they are present. Most respondents feel that it’s at least somewhat important for healthcare providers to use EHRs instead of paper records, but 90 percent said that they’ve never tried or been able to access medical test results online."
And the money quote:
"Seven in 10 respondents said that their doctors would do a better job coordinating their care if an EHR system were adopted."
70% think docs would do a better job with EHRs. 80% searching for health information online (via Pew, @susannahfox - new research due June 9th).
Any questions?
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