Electronic Medical Records: Will Your Privacy Be Safe?

I am an RN (Registered Nurse) who works with electronic medical record (EMR) charting in the medical community (a large hospital/health system). I and my colleagues have been discussing the lack of confidentiality for the mentally ill patient with this transparent, rapid, and highly accessable EMR system. In psychiatric and mental health care settings we have worked under strict confidentiality rules to insure that the patient/client relationship could develop trust. It is one thing to share with your family care physician (PCP) that you have a sore throat than to share that you feel depressed and have thoughts of suicide. Yet, any information shared with a physician, or nurse, is transported into the EMR system, consequently, allowing acessabilty to what was believed to be a confidential conversation(s) with one care provider. Unfortunately, in cyber space news,one can read that future employers and future financial lenders could potentially have access to these records when deciding whether to hire, promote or offer loans for these particular clients. For example, a patient who has a history of cancer, cardiac problems, and/ or mental illness, there looms the potential that they could potentially be fired from a job or turned down for a job due to information provided in their medical. They could be judged by a health history that was developed by assessments for problems, or they would not need to be in their PCP's office nor hospitalized. In the EMR you rarely will have an understanding about how the patient is doing after their open heart surgery or suicidal ideation when discharged from the hospital, because technically, the assessed problem has been treated and the patient is sent home. Anyone who reads a EMR will see the portrait of an ill person, not the healthier person who no longer requires medical care. Thus, this is where a major flaw occurs, in allowing almost unlimited access to these records, even for other medical care providers who continue to see a "Problem List" (often without date of occurrence) rather than a dated resolution list of problems. The next time you visit a healthcare provider (PCP) who is using a EMR you will be provided with a copy of your visit providing some very helpful information and some not so helpful, like the time you inquired about Viagra for you know.... well it was a discussion with your PCP whom you have known for twenty years, and later you see Impotency on your EMR Problem List. Yes, not only for you, but for all the other eyes who can now access your ahem... conversations with your PCP. I will end this comment with humor as that is the best medicine until specific treatent can be determined and WE ALL FIND A WAY OUT of this confidentialily mess.

Carol, will this be confidential of OR 11:32AM February 22, 2013