Paul Ratcliffe, director of information systems for RHD Memorial Medical Center in Carrollton and Trinity Medical Center in Farmers Branch, Texas, says that electronic medical records are becoming standard. We have a system called Tenet MD that allows the physicians to log on, check patient records, see lab and radiology results, and get demographic information about the patient. We have a version of that for the patient that lets them get information about diseases and medications that have been prescribed. Ratcliffe says that the site is secure enough to refuse access to the general public. But encryption certificates and high security make the likelihood of that happening slim, he says.
People think that because it's going across a wire, it's more vulnerable.
But it's just as secure as the old way of doing things. The difference, of course, is that the electronic version can move from one doctor's office to another more quickly, saving time both for patients and physicians. Before this, the doctor had to come to the hospital and request the physical medical record of a patient. If it's online and a patient comes in with a problem, the doctor can go online to immediately check their history instead of doing a lot of legwork. It speeds up the diagnosis.