Opinion: Data standards may be wonky, but they will transform health care
A story with enormous implications for the health of all Americans is likely flying below their radar and that of their physicians. In a nutshell, it’s this: A proposed rule that sets data standards will make electronic health information more accessible to patients and doctors through smartphone-style apps and will transform health care.
Most Americans are familiar with this scenario: During the “conversation” parts of a medical appointment, the doctor faces a computer screen and types information into an electronic medical record system. Such systems store data on hundreds of millions of Americans.
Yet even with all of this data entry going on, it is a struggle for patients to get copies of their records, and an even bigger one to get them in useful, digital formats. Even more alarming, despite the vast amount of data collected by electronic medical record systems, little of
