Our medical records were supposed to join the information age: a single repository with a person’s entire medical history, accessible to all who should see it, safe from those who shouldn’t, easily mined to improve individual care and the health care industry at large. Presidents Bush and Obama signed on to the movement, creating incentives for doctors to switch to EHRs and penalizing them if they didn’t. The federal government invested heavily in EHRs over the past decade, around $30 billion, trying to achieve their widespread use. But we are still a long way off, and before we get there, there are questions about data ownership and privacy to be worked out.
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