rural medicine (Score 4)

Having health records online would be a huge boon to rural medical practice, especially given the already surging growth in telemedicine. By having medical records already available online, practitioners in areas with limited medical resources (such as Alaska's bush communities) could greatly increase the speed of treatment for difficult medical and trauma patients. By already having the records online, the temporal gap between presentation in the primary care clinic and a second opinion by a specialist would be greatly shorted, in many cases increasing the chances of a successful recovery. Having medical records online wouldn't just help "one or two patients" as someone else commented, it would be of great advantage to many....IF they can get the encryption software to work properly. As a future rural physician, I know I would appreciate having my patients' records online. Knowing what I do about encryption and the privacy issues involved in an issue like this, I'm just not so sure I'd want MY records online. Hopefully they'll work it out, because this could be a huge advantage to the medical community, as well as to they patients they treat.