Massachusetts aims for electronic health records system in five years.Massachusetts doctors could access patients' records from anywhere in the state within five years, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. an electronic health records program that aims to improve care and reduce medical errors. The eHealth pilot program would allow medical professionals to access a patient's medical history including prior tests and procedures, diagnoses and prescriptions. It could save time, prevent duplication and reduce errors from misunderstanding handwritten hand·write tr.v. hand·wrote , hand·writ·ten , hand·writ·ing, hand·writes To write by hand. [Back-formation from handwritten.] Adj. 1. notes or prescriptions. At the same time, it has raised privacy concerns. "This is a show-stopper issue," said Micky Tripathi, chief executive officer of the nonprofit A corporation or an association that conducts business for the benefit of the general public without shareholders and without a profit motive. Nonprofits are also called not-for-profit corporations. Nonprofit corporations are created according to state law. Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, which will run the project. "If we're not able to put into place a system that both healthcare professionals and patients can trust, we will not open up the system." Three communities, diverse in geography and information technology currently in use, will be selected this month. The pilots would run about two years, during which time practices and financing would be established, Tripathi said. Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Shield A US not-for-profit health care insurer that is a reimbursement intermediary for physicians. Cf Blue Cross. of Massachusetts has pledged as much as $50 million to help the eHealth collaborative "achieve its goal to improve the safety, affordability and quality of health care," said Cleve L. Killingsworth, the company's president and chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. , in a statement. The Massachusetts project's organizers are to solicit vendors and choose a handful to recommend to medical professionals, who would choose one based on options that fit their specific needs, Tripathi said. One vendor with about 4,000 current users is ChartWare, which allows physicians to give patients their records on computer disk or encrypted en·crypt tr.v. en·crypt·ed, en·crypt·ing, en·crypts 1. To put into code or cipher. 2. Computer Science e-mail, ChartWare Inc.'s president and chief executive officer, Dr. David Tully-Smith, said. Possible privacy safeguards, some of which are more practical than others, are encrypted passwords for physicians and patients, fingerprint fingerprint, an impression of the underside of the end of a finger or thumb, used for identification because the arrangement of ridges in any fingerprint is thought to be unique and permanent with each person (no two persons having the same prints have ever been access and firewalls configured in a network, Tully-Smith said. |
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