Page 21 - Bexar County Medical Society Purchasing Directory

MEDICAL
TECHNOLOGY

system to pollutants, such as malware,” the ONC report stated.
“There is growing potential for risks related to unauthorized access,
including cyber threats.”
The AMA participates in the Health and Human Services Health
Sector Coordinating Council (HSSC) that recently released a four-
volume publication offering practical cybersecurity guidelines for
small, medium and large health care organizations for focusing on
major threats, identifying vulnerabilities, and prioritizing resources.
It also provides resources and templates that can be customized for
an individual practice or organization’s use.
Another security concern cited by the ONC is the privacy risk of
reidentifying deidentified data as it is collected and integrated from
a variety of different sources. ONC, however, also identified several
opportunities that PGHd provides for improving health.

According to the ONC,
patient-generated health data:
• Empowers patients to capture, use and share PGHd to better
manage their health and to participate in their care.
• Shows a more holistic picture of a patient’s health over time, “in-
creases visibility into a patient’s adherence” to a treatment plan,
and enables timely interventions.
• Strengthens the patient-physician relationship by facilitating the
creation of an individualized care plan and fostering shared de-
cision-making.
• Provides researchers access to a larger pool of data.

Aside from the big cybersecurity concern, the
ONC noted other challenges. Among them:
• Practices may lack the technical infrastructure and workforce ca-
pacity to integrate PGHd into functional workflows.
• Evidence demonstrating clinical benefit of PGHd “is still lim-
ited and inconclusive.” EHRs purchased or upgraded in 2019 will include the capability
• There are liability concerns about using potentially inaccurate to capture PGHd. Physicians should ask their EHR vendors to pro-
PGHd in clinical decisions or if PGHd is not acted on or re- vide comprehensive education on this new feature. EHR vendors
viewed. should provide best practices on the use, security and integration
• The lack of technical standards limits secondary research and of PGHd into physicians’ workflows.
clinical trial uses for PGHd. Patients may also be distrustful about how their information will
be used. The ONC cited a survey conducted by the patient infor-
The ONC also identified technical challenges mation-sharing website PatientslikeMe which found that, among
patients face: patients with an existing medical condition, 72 percent believe data
• As of 2016, 34 million Americans still lacked access to broad- from personal health records can be used to deny them health ben-
band internet. efits, while 68 percent felt they could be denied job opportunities.
• 36 percent of Americans do not own a smartphone.
• Use or ownership of smartphones could be challenged by a pa- Andis Robeznieks is a senior news writer with the American Medical As-
tient’s low income, cognitive or physical impairments, or language sociation.
barriers.

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