A call for plasma

Today I read "that Ohio State researchers and clinicians have found a way to take plasma from someone who has recovered from COVID-19 and deliver it to patients who are currently battling the virus to aid in their treatment and recovery." Hey, that's great news. But in that e-mail people who'd had Covid19 and been symptom free for 28 days were urged to donate plasma. Huh? Don't we have a billion dollars worth of EMR in Ohio and the other 49 plus DC and territories so some researcher can data mine our health records even if our MD has to call for it? Doesn't Dr. Brix always say, "the data show?" If the first known death was Feb. 29 in the U.S. and it wasn't in Ohio and many had it and didn't know it, maybe even me or you, should everyone who's had a mysterious cold or cough since the fall be tested?

Ohio has had less than 8,000 confirmed cases and barely over 2,000 were hospitalized. Doctors' offices are swamped with calls from clients who can't even be tested without all the signs. Surely somewhere in all those computers there's a record of the people to contact.

And President Trump will probably be blamed for OSU not knowing where to look for donated plasma. After all, isn't it his fault he didn't close down the economy before anyone had died?

My letter to a grant recipient at OSU

Today I noticed in OnCampusToday you’ve received a handsome grant of $2.27 million from NIH for “patient engagement.” Congratulations.  I’ve read through your publications, and you have had an impressive career. Although I don’t know what “concept map to define capacity for engagement” means, I would like to comment on patient portals as a means to engage patients in their own care.

I hate them.

My husband has 2 doctors, 3 if you count the cancer specialist whom he rarely sees, and I have 3, family, ophthalmologist and cardiologist. We share the family doctor. Each practice uses a different portal system for finding our lab results, asking questions, tracking meds, etc.  But the worst feature is their sending us advertisements! I don’t know until I’ve made the effort to get in—not easy—why I’m being contacted. What a mess! Fortunately, I don’t think my ophthalmologist uses one, because he’s the one I see most frequently. When I ask him to send a record to my family doctor, he uses a fax.

Recently we received a notice from our financial advisor suggesting we have our own “portal” for his financial services, and I fired back, Absolutely Not. Face to face is always better. I’ve not had eye-contact with a doctor since Obama imposed the horribly expensive EMR system, which had never been tested for improved care or cost reduction. One of the Emanuel brothers just thought the tech industry needed a pay off. My medical records could be transported faster by carrier pigeons from Riverside Hospital to Dr. Jennifer Bush, 2 miles away. And I hold no hope that patient portals will improve my care, at least not the ones in use by any of our doctors.

And by the way, how secure are these portals? Who designs them to be unworkable? Are they more secure than large medical practice records? Two years ago my husband’s urologist’s practice was hacked, and thousands of records exposed with all the personal data that goes along with that.

I have 9 blogs, I’m on at least 4 e-mail discussion lists, I’m on Facebook, I read a lot of medical, political, technology and religious information web sites, and I’m a retired librarian (veterinary medicine) who formerly taught classes in data base searching and information skills.  I used to teach “older learners,” which is anyone over 25.   You need a system that is easy for 80 year olds or admit this technology does not have the capacity to engage.

Norma J. Bruce

OSU Libraries faculty, retired

Hacked medical records

We are faced with reading 4 pages of "Notice of Data Incident" about my husband's hacked medical records on August 2. Name, address, telephone numbers, email, birthdate, patient ID number, SS number, account information, driver's license/government ID, medical and health insurance information and identifiers and diagnosis and treatment information. That, of course, can be linked to any other databases including the county's (even I can access a floor plan and photo of your house at the auditor's site), donations, organizations we belong to, etc. A perfect profile to be sold on the internet to create a "valid" ID for an illegal or criminal. The advice, since it's like putting toothpaste back in the tube, is to enroll in Equifax so we can receive fraud alerts and identity protection. Big whoop. Why is their information any more secure than the government's or our medical office? The advice is for us to remain "vigilant" and frequently review our credit statements. As if that's the only thing a criminal can do with this information. 

Every medical office in the country was forced by the federal government into these online systems (at a huge cost) and they don't even work well. Our information between practice networks could have moved faster by courier pigeon, and it wasn't even correct. The EMR requirement was a rush job, and a gift to the IT lobbyists with no studies done on whether EMR would reduce costs or save lives.

It also shows us how easy it will be to manipulate the vote in November.

Preparing for surgery tomorrow

[This is what I wrote in an e-mail, but I'm just leaving it here in case you're researching what to do.]

My head explodes when I think what we pay for these EMR!! How many billions ($27 billion in 2009) and there wasn’t a shred of evidence from any studies it would help health care.

 

We just had a call from the hospital (9 a.m. Tuesday) from a clerk checking all the details for surgery tomorrow. We have to call between 2-4 p.m. today to find the hour of the surgery on Wednesday. The hospital still didn’t have any of the test results from his complete physical on Aug. 16—different doctor, 2 miles down the road. Carrier pigeon could have done it better. And as I think I mentioned before, his internist never received the results of the scans 3 weeks before his physical. Also the hospital had him listed as 5’11”, high blood pressure and cataract surgery. None of that is true. I’m wondering what other Bruce’s medical records got folded into his. He’s about 5’8”, no problem with blood pressure ever, and his eyes are fine. Always, always, have another person checking. The lobbyists for IT made a bundle on this, but at our expense. 

 

Rant over. I’m going to vacuum to blow off steam.

 

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/report-electronic-medical-records-market-nears-25-billion-300066515.html

 

http://www.hitechanswers.net/about/about-arra/

 

As a bonus, here’s what I wrote about this problem 7 years ago:

 

I stopped by to pick up a prescription at my doctor’s office because the “electronic transfer” of information between that office and the pharmacy I used hadn’t been able to manage the job in 3.5 days, and I was out (old methods of fax and phone aren't used anymore). Normally, I would have just told the receptionist what I needed, and my file (paper) would have been retrieved (human). No. I waited about 10 minutes as she struggled getting the right screens up, then worked from screen to screen, asking me questions I didn’t know, like date of my last appointment and address of the pharmacy. A line was forming behind me. When she finally found it, she said there was no record from the pharmacy requesting permission for a refill, but the doctor would decide.

That night we got a call from the doctor’s office that “it was ready,” i.e. the prescription script. My husband went to pick it up and waited about 15 minutes in line as the receptionist struggled with the screens of 2 or 3 people ahead of him. Fortunately, it was in a paper envelope with my name hand written on the outside. We can only hope and pray that the national “network” that Obama is forcing thousands of small offices to buy into (causing many to close their doors), doesn’t work any worse than what you’ve all experienced at the local level as your doctor or clinic transitions.