Health News and Scoops

MMR Information Systems, Inc., which through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc. (collectively, “MMR”) provides consumer-controlled Personal Health Records (“PHRs”) (www.mymedicalrecords.com) and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions (www.myesafedepositbox.com), offered an extensive demonstration of its new MyMedicalRecords Pro (“MMR Pro”) electronic medical record storage system and integrated MMRPatientView PHR product for doctor offices and their patients at the annual Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) show in Chicago.

The system gives physicians the ability to generate ongoing revenues by enabling patients an upgrade option to a MyMedicalRecords Personal Health Record. MMR believes the system is being designed to comply with standards necessary for physicians to receive qualifying reimbursement for installation and integration from stimulus monies.

The MMR Pro service is designed to help doctors, particularly sole practitioners and small group practices, better manage their paper records by scanning those records to a secure Web-based portal at www.mymedicalrecordsmd.com, where they are viewable by the doctor 24/7 from any Internet-connected computer. Scanned records are automatically placed in designated folders that correspond with the tabs in a patient chart.

The doctor also is able to share records with his patients through a special portal at www.mmrpatientview.com, thus creating a communications link between doctor and patient.

“MMR received validation of its Personal Health Record from leading hospital IT executives and the consulting community, citing MMR’s Personal Health Record as ‘the best full-featured PHR at the show,’” said Gene Barduson, MMR Healthcare Market Strategist. “Based on the reaction at the show we believe that MMR’s PHR could be offered to as many as three million patients by the end of 2010 through EMR system suppliers.”

“We are proud of our integrated medical record storage and Personal Health Record system that helps doctors deal with the ever-increasing flow of paper records in their practice while affording them a seamless way to provide the information to patients who can then play a more active role in their own care,” said Robert H. Lorsch, Chairman and CEO of MMR Information Systems, Inc. “With all of the attention on Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), it is important to remember that the vast majority of doctors still run their practices with paper records. MMR Pro is designed for doctors who want a cost-effective solution to digitize those paper records on a patient forward basis.”

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A study released today in the public health journal Health Affairs detailed the financial impact of obesity on the United States health care system from 1998 to 2006.  The buzz of health care reform has led many to try and figure out where the money could come from.  Taxing? Hopefully not. Getting rid of insurance fraud and abuse? Potentially, but that would only be about a 3% savings.  Decreasing physician salaries and hospital budgets? Counterproductive.  Ah ha!  Reseachers discovered that obesity since 1998 has led to nearly $40 billion dollars in health care spending.  This includes perscription drug costs, which topped out at $7 billion.  The group estimates that with the incidence of obesity rising, costs will most likely have reached $147 billion dollars by 2008 (these studies have to be done in retrospect, as the data analysis is not possible until the year is over, and trends are typically seen over more than one year).
The most disconcerting part of their paper is when they show that in 1998, half of the $78.5 billion of medical spending due to obesity was paid for by Medicaid and Medicare.  If that is the case, then the researchers are correct in pointing out that a key to health care reform is going to have to focus on obesity.  It is calculated in this study that in the years between 1998 and 2006, the rate of obesity in the United States increased by 37%.  That’s 25.1% of our population.
The analysis found in this paper is not an attempt to attack obese people, but to illuminate how the medical problems caused by obesity are draining our health care system of its money.  Obesity is associated with some of the most expensive medical conditions possible: type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and cancer.  Obesity is not just a problem of weight gain; it is a problem of causing the body to divert to its worst state of being, often leading to more than one if not all of those conditions mentioned.  We must avoid playing the blame game, and treat this issue as one of general concern both for the health care of our population, and the economic welfare of our population.  This study tells me that obesity has to be a center of change in our country.  Employers should provide incentives for losing weight and staying healthy, and obesity must be treated early in childhood.  I don’t know about you, but next time you think that obesity is a topic that can’t be addressed because of stigma, remember this: $147 billion dollars in 2008.