It was only a matter of time until the war about the standardization in healthcare would start. Of course, there has been tremendous effort being put into making data exchangeable and interoperable over the past years, but looking from patients’ perspective, it’s simply not enough.
So it is not surprising that some of the big corporations are taking the lead here by following also rules and guidelines of the governments in several countries. To them, being able to give their users the ability to share their data with the ones there costumers want seems only bluntly logical. After all, it is THEIR data.
Within the field of EMR vendors, there are different perspectives, which should not wonder most of us in this field. With all the narratives, reflections, and plans up until now, sharing the data from out of and into EMR systems did not really take off from the patient’s perspective.
Apple, together with Microsoft (and a lot of other companies ) are now helping to push through a policy that lets consumers/patients access their data “without further delay”.
The approach that, i.e. Epic (one of the leading EMR vendors), has taken is arguing it will have a tremendous effect on patient privacy.
Whatever ‘side’ you choose, Microsoft has created a couple of standards that have become historical before, and also Apple has the same track record. Working from a consumer/patient’s perspective always determines the winning side in the end. It is time to have patients access to their own data.
And tomorrow won’t be a day too soon.
Update February 6th, 2020:
Meanwhile, this became a developing story with 60 (out of the 300) hospitals agreeing with Epic that data should NOT be shared with patients. I’m keeping a Flipboard with articles about this.
