Kyle Smith

A few months ago I had a follow-up appointment with my (still relatively new to me) doctor to get some test results as well as to get a new prescription for my allergy medications. Afterwards I left St. Francis feeling rather annoyed at the lack of bedside manner and common curtesy she displayed, to the point I considered canceling all my future appointments and switching to a new healthcare provider. My aggravation was renewed last week when I received a bill with a number of “overdue” charges, except I was never billed in the 8 months since my initial visit.

Yesterday NBC’s Today Show had a segment about firing your doctor if you’re unhappy with the care you’re receiving. While I have certainly considered that numerous times in the last few months, the only thing keeping me with my current provider is the fact that they have my medical records and the last time I requested complete records from a hospital, DHMC sent me the logs from when I was briefly receiving allergy shots and nothing else (very unhelpful).

Last night I was thinking about that problem and wondering if there was an open standard for electronic health records, so that I could easily find a new doctor and have them immediately know my completely medical history. This morning I came across a press release from IBM (my employer) from last month announcing that they had contributed a chunk of technology to the Eclipse Foundation for their Open Healthcare Framework project, which sounds like it will resolve this problem.

While I am still concerned about the privacy and security issues surrounding medical records and how they’re used, I’m also looking forward to the day when I might have the ability to change doctors on a whim when service is poor. Imagine how much healthcare service would have to improve if there was actually competition for customers like there are in other industries.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that my 10 minute visit with the doctor for her to glance at a sheet of test results she had never seen before and tell me “your numbers have improved” cost $160.