Will Rome help build in-roads in the medical field?

Rome was not built in a day. In its development the Romans IMPLEMENTED many infrastructure changes that allowed for forward progress. They made roads to speed up transit and promote trade. They also created and used aqueducts to bring clean water to the people. The individual people of Rome could not have produced the same results given their individual devices. They took the summation of their resources and bettered the populace with infrastructure.

Today we apply the term infrastructure to many different applications that were not used in the time of Caesar. The last emerging world changing technology is the internet. Today a new world changing technology is coming into emergence. The new technology is “electronic medical records.”

This may seem a bit of a radical concept, but “electronic medical records” is a technology that will allow medicine to be reinforced with access to more information. Let’s step back to the Romans and their roads. Before Romans had roads, they walked and rode horses across the country side. With the advent of the road, traveling became more direct and efficient. Currently doctors are riding horses across the country side, and with EMR they should have a slightly more direct and efficient path.

Okay, we have heard the Obama administration talk about it since last year, but no one is telling us how. It starts with a very socialistic approach of national standardization. Before you fly off the handle at the concept of socialism, understand that all infrastructures have to have broad sweeping standards. An example would be road widths and speed limits. Another example would be internet data transmission with many of its boring details. I imagine the world of EMR will require many levels of boring standards to be effective.

In my very non-educated opinion, EMR will need a consortium of vendors to standardize the important information. Items like digitizing x-rays, ultra sounds and CT/PET scans are a given for needs. Text based information and standardizing “CODING” are also necessary, but someone has to make these decisions. Much like the Federal Banking system is for currency, the Center for Disease Control may be the best choice for heading up the EMR standardization, since they are the leading government agency with regards for health. This may be a good opportunity to create a consolidation agency that combines the CDC with the Food and Drug administration, much like the Department of Homeland Security combined all of the law enforcement agencies.

Once this standard is set, the medical community will become much more effective. However until the government setup a committee to take care of the standardization Health care will suffer in inefficiency.