Online petition addresses patient safety problems due to electronic communication

An online petition is targeting lapses in electronic healthcare communication that lead to almost 1,000 deaths a day.

Headed by Donald Voltz, MD, an anesthesiologist at a non-profit hospital in Canton, Ohio, and an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio Medical University, the campaign calls for government intervention.

Once the petition on change.org gets 25,000 signatures, it will go to the White House, according to an announcement.

A flaw in current medical communications technology, compounded by government and industry inaction, is resulting in misinformation and missing medical data being presented to healthcare workers when they need it most, according to the announcement.

“We don’t care if this is done through an executive order, a law passed by Congress or industry initiative, as long as it is done. By signing the petition, we are telling the President and Congress that we need a direct path of communication between all healthcare systems through a specific and comprehensive set of requirements to end interoperability. Solutions are there, but no one has an incentive to implement them,” said Voltz.

Government intervention is warranted, he says, because providers won’t do it on their own. “The medical industry has had many opportunities to bring about interoperability like the January 2009 passage of the HITECH Act, a $30 billion effort to transform healthcare delivery through widespread use of EHR technology. Also, the Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Program requirements have helped to create greater commonality in basic EHR functions across systems at a much faster pace than would have otherwise occurred,” said Voltz. “But despite all of these initiatives, we still don’t have a solution.”

Sign the petition.