“The report, by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, listed a litany of complaints it has received about vendors allegedly charging hefty fees to set up connections and share patient records; requiring customers to use proprietary platforms; and making it prohibitively expensive to switch systems.
The report also cited complaints that some hospital systems make it difficult to transfer patient records to rival systems or physicians as a way to control referrals and enhance their market dominance.
The agency didn’t cite any companies by name, however, and said it couldn’t determine the extent of information-blocking—in part because contracts often forbid customers from discussing prices and other terms.
“This is our first deep dive, where we have taken the opportunity to describe the situation and identify practices that interfere with the flow of health information,” said ONC chiefKaren DeSalvo. “We believe it will take an array of solutions and we look forward to working with Congress on this.”
EHRs are super important for the future of medical care and personalized medicine, but there are a lot of logistical problems – every system is different, it isn’t straightforward to digitize old records, and there is a huge problem in specialized care where the standardized forms aren’t able to incorporate the kind of information that doctor and nurses want to record.
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