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The Patient Portal—Help or Hindrance?
Just Want to Talk | Last Active: Feb 17 12:10am | Replies (227)Comment receiving replies
Thanks for the background! That is interesting to know! I wondered how they could "fax" such a thing. When I asked my first doctor to send my scans to Mayo Clinic, she mentioned "push" and others mentioned there was a fax number.
I will keep in mind your suggestion to get CD. So far, no problem to have larger clinics push to Mayo. How do these radiology images work with EPIC?
Wondering how long are these images kept on file in one institution? I ask because I have had issues in the past getting x-rays/scans from previous providers when living in another state. It would be nice to have them automatically follow the patient no matter where the patient goes. Like one central database where all clinical information on the patient is stored, easily available when needed. I hate filling out new form when I go to a new doctor.
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Okay, here you PACS101. By law, 10 years or 10 years after 18th birthday. So if a baby is xrayed on his 1st day the images would have to be keeper for 28 years. Now that was really film days. As you could imagine that was a lot of physical space. Since everything is digital now we keep them forever. We just add more hard drives to a refrigerator size computer server.
Epic is a charting (equal to the old 3 ring binders) program. Images are stored on a PACS (picture archive communication system) network. So two different systems with two different jobs. PACS does send links to the chart system but that is just to make the doctors/nurses lives easier they are now really connected. Which is good because our Epic system goes down and the images can still be viewed because Fuji PACS is still up.
Your question about the information following you. Ha ha they tried it. Time for me to get on my soapbox. It failed miserably. I’m sure you heard of HIPAA (health insurance portability and accountability). Well the original idea behind it was to make health records portable. Except no one worried about that part. All anyone worked on was the accountability part. It ended up having the opposite affect. Back in the day we would just hand you your records. So the next time you have to sign more forms than you did for your mortgage, thank HIPAA. logisticly it had many issues too. For example you have different medical record numbers at the different hospitals. Your MRN at one hospital might match the MRN at another hospital. See the issue.
Hope that helps. Ask if you have any other questions