Electronic Health Records in the Age of Social Networks and Global Telecommunications
- Aviv Shachak, PhD;
- Alejandro R. Jadad, MD, DPhil
- Author Affiliations: Department of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation (Drs Shachak and Jadad) and Centre for Global eHealth Innovation (Dr Jadad), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- COMPUTER SECURITY
- CONFIDENTIALITY
- DATA COLLECTION
- ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS
- HEALTH POLICY
- INTERNET
- MEDICAL RECORDS SYSTEMS, COMPUTERIZED
- PATIENT SAFETY
- PRIVACY
- SECURITY MEASURES
On August 20, 2009, the US government announced $1.2 billion in new grants as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to promote “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHRs) by all individuals in 2011,1 and to support the development of mechanisms for information sharing through EHRs in the United States. This investment is happening at a time of massive reduction in the costs of data collection, exchange, and storage; of convergence of technologies; and massive public adoption of smart telephones and online social media.
In this Commentary, we propose some components for consideration during the development of the EHR network that will emerge in the United States. This proposal recognizes that these important trends create a unique opportunity for the emergence of a national system of interconnected EHRs in the United States and for a rethinking of how EHRs are constructed and used, and to promote a …
