Burwell Unveils Agreement To Ease Access To Patients’ Digital Health Records

USA Today (2/29, O’Donnell) reports that on Monday, Federal health officials unveiled a deal which “should make digital health records easier for consumers and regulators to access and address safety issues linked with the data.” Almost all companies which “provide digital health records and 16 of the largest hospitals and health systems agreed to stop the practice of ‘information blocking,’ to adopt a universal language and to improve the systems so patients can easily monitor their health information.”

Commenting on the deal, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell stated, “It’s great to have an electronic record, but if that record can’t be easily accessed by doctors and patients because of clunky technology, then we aren’t consistently seeing the benefit.” She added that some 75 percent of physicians and almost all hospitals now use “EHRs, which means ‘there is now a digital care footprint for almost everyone in this country.’”

Related Links:

— “Health companies will improve digital records, but safety concerns linger,” Jayne O’Donnell, USA Today, February 29, 2016.

Posted in In The News.