PHRs Go Overseas
If you've been following Jay's blog, "XY Files in and MT World," recently, you know there have been some frightening reports of medical records being sold overseas. It's enough to make you hunker down in the States and demand your records stay local.
On the contrary, some patients are ditching domestic services and seeking medical care abroad. Medical tourism is booming, and the ongoing health care debate has a lot to do with it. Sick of waiting for the public option, uninsured Americans are traveling to places like India, Singapore and Columbia to get treatment for a lot cheaper--like, 10s of thousands of dollars cheaper--than inflated U.S. costs.
A few months ago, I wrote an article about medical tourism for the Patient Resource Center at ADVANCE for Healthy Aging, one of our sister pubs. Ever the HIM inquisitor, one of my questions was, what about medical records? Patients simply request a copy (an oh-so-easy process, of course) and bring them to whatever facility they select for treatment. When the procedure is done and recovery in progress, the patient totes records from the foreign facility back across the border to their primary provider's hands.
It all seems a little, well, unsecured if you ask me; the record exchange would go a lot smoother if physicians were linked electronically. Of course, Microsoft pounced on that opportunity. The company recently announced that Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, will begin offering electronic personal health records (PHRs) to patients both local and from afar. The hospital will use Microsoft HealthVault to share records with patients and their doctors back home. It's all in the effort to promote continuity of care--at least that's according to the bigwigs involved in the deal.
It's a fine idea and makes life a lot easier for the patient, who doesn't have to lug folders and X-ray in a compact carry-on, but there's still that lingering concern-HIPAA. I'm assuming the international hospital involved in the deal abides by privacy and security regulations, but legally speaking, U.S. law doesn't go beyond borders. Contracts may require protection of personal health information, but if business associate agreements are any indication, those clauses don't guarantee penalties will be assessed.
How do you feel about medical tourism? Offshoring is a big debate in the HIM industry, but what about patients who voluntarily go overseas for care? Should they know it means relinquishing HIPAA protections?