I use a continuous glucose monitor, but I'm not sure I see what the weight loss payoff Kennedy imagines from…
Morning Headlines 6/6/25
OhioHealth Southeastern Medical Center Launches eICU Program
OhioHealth Southeastern Medical Center launches an electronic ICU program that enables OhioHealth staff at the health system’s central monitoring center to remotely monitor patients and communicate with bedside staff.
Clinicians can ‘chat’ with medical records through new AI software, ChatEHR
Stanford Health Care (CA) pilots an internally developed AI tool dubbed ChatEHR that enables clinicians to interact with patient medical records, primarily in the form of information-gathering.
Prompt EMR Rebrands as Prompt Health to Reflect Expanded Vision and Platform
Rehab therapy software vendor Prompt EMR rebrands to Prompt Health.
Omada Health Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering
Virtual chronic care management company Omada Health adjust its IPO pricing to $19 a share in hopes of raising $150 million during its stock market debut June 6.
Shouldn’t AI make it easier for a provider to get information from their patient’s record? All we would need is a secure way to access that record. Seems pretty easy to build if Judy lets it happen. Shouldn’t it be the law to make that happen?
The feature already exists – it is called Share Everywhere. A patient can give the code to the doctor to get information easily. Try it out..
https://shareeverywhere.epic.com/
So that is in real time while a patient is at another facility that is non-Epic or not connected?
Yes. And Epic also takes part in Carequality and TEFCA, two other methods for sharing info between hospitals on other EHRs.
How much data is shared though in a meaningful way? It’s important data but it is limited and certainly not access to the full record which a certain providers would like to have access to to make the best care decisions. It’s just a fact that smaller hospitals are being pressured to go with a very expensive Epic solution because the doctors and patients want the more comprehensive sharing of records that being on Epic and Epic only facilitates.
Why should a private company be forced to “build” any feature into their software?
Who owns the patients record? Epic or the patient?
Legally, neither? From my understanding the hospital system owns the data and stores it on Epic software; the law protects a patient’s right to access that data in certain formats and mandates that the data must be securely stored, kept for a certain period, shared under certain parameters, etc., but I’m not aware of anything that says that information collected by a hospital is owned by the patient. That’s a nice sentiment that people have (and one I may agree with), but it doesn’t match up with the legal facts.
Owned is a relative term. So under the current state no laws are being broken but is the patient data really accessible in a meaningful way outside of Epic hospitals? Is that good for the patient or for the competitive landscape within the Electronic Health Record Market?
@Smartfood99 – Epic doesn’t own any patient information. Think of Epic software similar to Microsoft Word or Excel. What you store in Excel is controlled by you and Microsoft has no right to access/disclose that information. Similarly, Epic sells software that hospital systems use to store their data. All access to that is controlled by the hospital systems.
A few years ago there was a situation where the FBI had possession of a locked and encrypted iPhone that they believed contained information about ongoing terrorist threats. They were in the process of suing Apple to force them to develop a way to break into the device.
Mind you, it was *not* the case that Apple already had a way to decrypt the device and was just refusing to do so for the FBI. The FBI was seeking a court order to force Apple to dedicate development resources to breaking their own encryption. The case ended up being withdrawn when a third party company came forward with their own tool that they’d developed to break that specific encryption. So we never got an answer in that case.
In general, the answer to the question “can the government force private entities to take a specific action” is “yes, if there’s a compelling enough benefit to the public”.
Seriously. It’s even easier for the government to get Epic/EHR vendors to do things. “If you want to accept Medicaid/Medicare payments, you must use an EHR that does _______” Nobody is forced to do anything, they are welcome to stop accepting government payments.