Late last summer, I was deep in a phone conversation with Cognizant Technology Solutions Vice President Simmi P. Singh, discussing her upcoming HMT article on disease management, when a serendipitous digression occurred. Is there anything that is more on the lips of healthcare IT experts these days than the NHIN, EHRs and systems interoperability?
Late last summer, I was deep in a phone conversation with Cognizant Technology Solutions Vice President Simmi P. Singh, discussing her upcoming HMT article on disease management, when a serendipitous digression occurred. Is there anything that is more on the lips of healthcare IT experts these days than the NHIN, EHRs and systems interoperability?
Simmi suggested a terrific idea, one I have not stopped thinking about. While we all patiently wait for 2014 to roll around and see if the Grand Vision of nationwide interoperability and an EHR for every patient transpires, could we not explore a more immediate, expedient method of delivering patient medical data to treating practitioners at the moment of care?
How about a plastic card, Simmi said—that credit-card size we all know, love and already haul around in our wallets. It wouldn’t even require a chip; a simple magnetic strip would suffice. It could transport the data most of us mentally cart around anyway: drug and food allergies, current medications, major surgeries, chronic conditions being treated, significant hospitalizations and blood type, plus the normal array of personal demographics and PCP info, of course.
Instantly, the Grand Vision morphed into a realistic vision that is doable, affordable and installable in communities across America for considerably less than the estimated $150+ billion price tag of the NHIN. What would it take, I asked? A plastic card in every patient’s wallet, a card reader in every physician’s office, hospital and walk-in center, and basic patient data, Simmi replied.
It’s worth repeating: doable, affordable and installable.
For experts like Simmi, the next step is hypothesizing the organizational and systematic requirements to achieve that vision—and she assures me that no insurmountable obstacles are attached to it. For nonexperts like me, though, the next step is envisioning how it would play in real life.
I am a consumer and a patient encumbered with a physician who clings to paper charts like lifeblood. I would be thrilled to participate in the cost, for my personal share, of a medical card identification system that would work even just here in the Florida BCBS network. I imagine visiting a specialist or using a walk-in center on the weekend and handing forth my medical ID card the way I hand forth my insurance card. The front desk staff would swipe it through a reader, generate an electronic thumbnail sketch of my allergies, conditions and medical peculiarities, and either save the data for electronic clinician access in the exam room or, at worst, print a paper copy for the treating practitioner. Every M.D., D.O. and A.P.R.N. who is not my regular practitioner could start out light years ahead of where they do now.
Why are we not pursuing a concept like this? It’s low cost, cost effective, urgently needed, doable and applicable to millions of consumers. Would a nationwide medical ID system have lightened the burden of Hurricane Katrina victims forced to relocate? Probably. Would it ease the load for soccer Moms of three, one of whom is a wretchedly sick kid in need of weekend medical care? Probably. Would most of us ordinary “covered members” leap at the chance to get such an ID card in our paws? Undoubtedly.
Good things and small packages. Long journeys and single steps. Again, why are we not pursuing this?
© 2006 Nelson Publishing, Inc
