In Emergencies, Use Electronic Medical Records

After Hurricane Katrina, I've been wondering about my own emergency preparedness. Could I and my family make it through a real natural catastrophe? I think we're pretty well prepared on an individual level. But what about our medical records?

Our family physician has our medical information - decades of it - in manila files in his office. What happens to us if his office burns down or is flattened by a tornado? We do not have complete copies of those files. This very thing happened to my sister's family, and they had real problems as a result. My nephew had to have several vaccinations again before he could go to summer camp, and my sister had to remind one doctor repeatedly that she is allergic to penicillin. If their doctor had switched to electronic medical records, they would not have had these problems.

And what about my security when I travel? Yes, I can tell a new physician that I, too, am allergic to penicillin. But what if I'm in a car crash five hundred miles from home? What background information would an emergency room need to treat me properly? How could they get that information if I am unconscious? If I had electronic medical records, that problem would not arise. My information would be available from a central storage facility with the tap of a key. I could even have it encoded on a plastic strip (like a credit card) and carry it in my wallet. A few people have gone further, and carry it recorded on a chip that is implanted under their skin.

The situation during a natural disaster is a thousand times more serious. Emergency physicians have to make decisions for many patients at great speed and under difficult conditions. Sometimes those are life-or-death decisions, and inadequate information could be literally deadly. Electronic medical records would make sure that adequate patient information was available in a crisis.

What about those refugees whose doctors' offices have been destroyed? If they have electronic medical records, they can still get their prescription medicines. They can continue scheduled medical treatment without spending enormous amounts of time and money getting new test results. Their children can be enrolled in new schools without having to be vaccinated over again. They can visit a doctor without having to recall every detail of their medical history at a time when shock has made it difficult to remember details.

Electronic medical records are a good idea for all of us.