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Your health online: Paducah doctors practice in tech world now
(Paducah Sun, The (KY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 10--You're on a cruise in the Bahamas and get sick, but the ship doctor knows nothing of your medical history or what prescriptions you take.
Starting Friday, 100-employee Jackson Purchase Medical Associates -- one of western Kentucky's largest physician organizations -- will introduce a free online medical records system allowing its patient records to go anywhere in the world. Patients will be able to build their own files, access health-education programs and correspond with their doctors by e-mail. The 16 physicians of Jackson Purchase Medical Associates will be able to use the Web to correspond with other physicians as directed by patients.
"People are really interested in taking control of their own health," Jackson Purchase CEO Shane Carter said. "You own the records. You're going to decide who gets to look at them."
A person sick in a remote place like the Bahamas can pull a card out of his wallet, present it to an emergency room doctor and say "go online and get my medical records," Carter said.
Jackson Purchase consists of four medical groups: Internal Medicine Group, Paducah Endocrinology, Western Kentucky Kidney Specialists and RediCare. Together, the doctors have about 50,000 patient visits annually, Carter said.
Eighteen months ago, Jackson Purchase joined the estimated 20 percent of physicians nationwide to switch from slow, bulky, outdated paper files to software and mobile laptop computers and software. That allows the 16 physicians to access records in their offices, at the two Paducah hospitals and at home.
Despite misplaced charts, prescription problems, diagnostic errors and other trouble inherent in the old system, doctors have been slow to go electronic because of the significant cost and their failure to recognize the value, Carter said.
"Trying to get doctors to move from being dinosaurs to gazelles is difficult," he said, noting that the area's medical industry is generally ahead of the curve.
Now Jackson Purchase is expanding internal electronic records to the Web via a trademark program called iHealthRecord, developed by San Francisco-based Medem Inc., a coalition set up by professional medical groups such as the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society. Medem launched iHealth Record in May 2005.
According to the company, Jackson Purchase is the first doctors' group in Kentucky to integrate electronic internal and online patient records, Carter said. Patients won't be able to access all their records until next year, but they will have immediate access to some of the information.
Enrollment takes about 10 minutes through www.internalmedicinegroup.com. Patients build their records through a series of clicks on boxes, eliminating cumbersome forms they have to fill out when they first visit a doctor.
"Our patients will never have to fill out another clipboard," Carter said.
Patients can document such things as their medical histories, surgeries, medications, vaccinations, doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and insurance. They can request prescriptions, book appointments, receive educational materials on diseases like diabetes, or give their accountants or business managers access to the records for tax purposes.
Within six months, Jackson Purchase will be one of the first, if not the first, physician groups in western Kentucky to offer online consultations, Carter said.
"You go home and the medication's not working," he said. "Now rather than having to book another appointment, you can talk to the doctor online."
Although many Jackson Purchase patients are aging and may not be Internet-savvy, Medem says the population group that uses the system the most is 60 and older, Carter said. "Most people in that category have e-mail, but we recognize this may not be valuable to every patient."
He said local groups expected to use the system most are middle-age people for themselves and elderly parents, and families with children.
Electronic records are in demand not only by patients, but by younger doctors, Carter said. "Of the doctors we've hired in the last four or five years, one of the first questions is 'Are you using e-records?'"
The national move to electronic health records is driven mainly by insurance companies and Medicare to prompt doctors to document health/medication trends as part of payment formulas and physician "report cards," he said.
"It's the wave of the future," Carter said. "I would say that within the next 10 years it will be extremely hard to practice medicine without using electronic medical records."
Copyright (c) 2006, The Paducah Sun, Ky.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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