Getting personal; Legal liability, patient-data overload among issues making physicians uneasy over emergence of personal health records.(Special Report)

Byline: Andis Robeznieks

Like a recurring dream about having to take a test they didn't study for, some physicians view the idea of patients with electronic personal health records as their own personal nightmare.

Visions of patients handing over a computer disk containing years' worth of blood-pressure readings taken every four hours along with random recollections of rashes and muscle strains that physicians are required to somehow make sense of and memorize are followed by thoughts of being sued because there was a kernel of important information missed in the deluge.

"That's why folks like me are terrified of personal health records and what patients will bring to us," internist Michael Zaroukian said earlier this year during a panel discussion at the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise Connectathon, an event that brings electronic medical record vendors together to solve interoperability problems (and sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the Radiological Society of North America and the American College of Cardiology).

While Zaroukian, who is chief medical information officer at Michigan State University, is now backing away from the word "terrified," he still maintains "there are certainly lots of reasons to be concerned."

The reasons for concern that Zaroukian cites include: the volume, usefulness, accuracy and completeness of the records physicians receive from patients; the hours of uncompensated work it will take to slog through them; and the potential for a misdiagnosis if something important was overlooked.

"In some ways, it's simply an electronic extrapolation of what we've seen in the paper world," Zaroukian says. "The greater the volume, the more likely it is that relevant data will be lost."

Zaroukian certainly isn't the only physician who feels this way.

"He has every reason to be frightened by that, and I don't see what he is describing as an improvement over someone bringing in an entire paper chart," says Joseph Heyman, a gynecologist and an American Medical Association trustee. "I don't blame a physician for worrying about that. I think the beauty of a personal health record is if it's a snapshot of a patient and their most important demographics-like their current condition, allergies and …