Electronic Medical Records Are a Reality

I think we've all seen the commercials that have come up around the Olympics touting the great idea of having your medical records be electronic and online for your Doctor to see.

Well, those electronic medical records are reality and they can be very useful and efficient for time-strapped doctors to help in diagnosing patients and diseases. So, where do those medical records come from? Who puts them into the "system" and who is responsible for keeping them safe, updated, and readily available? That's a loaded question you see. We've talked about how you can break into the medical community through computers, but let's get more specific about using computers to work in medicine.

Electronic medical records are such a cool concept that it almost makes you want to sit in the doctor's office and have previous doctors pipe up and recount tests you've had and diagnoses you've been given, but you don't have to take your pants off in front of a crowd to have easy-to-use online medical records. Besides the obvious...having doctors who are willing to put their records in the "system" you also have to have computer savvy folks in "the loop" who are willing to watch over this stuff 24/7.

As cool as it sounds to have electronic medical records, you can't just save them on a computer and expect that to be that. You must have a "webmaster" of sorts on hand to make sure that the records are managed properly and protected. Protected? Yes, protected.

You see, if you just save records onto a server and let them sit there you're bound to run into "hacking" issues so you need someone on hand who knows all the "right moves" to keep the records safe. If you're an independent office or hospital and you're using some larger system then you need someone on hand who can manage the input of records into a 3rd party system.

If you are using your own server and then linking a much larger network you've got to have someone on hand who can stroke the keyboard AND handle all the expensive and sophisticated computer equipment that you need. Think about it. Large websites hire tons of people to deal with overheated servers all day. You'll need someone to do the same thing. Electronic medical records are cool, but they're worthless if they're on a busted server.

So, how do you get into medicine if you're the "computer type"? Well, first you need to know who's taking on new technology. You can read the paper and see that certain hospitals and medical facilities are spending umpteen millions of dollars on new technology. Then, you need to go in and ask if they're hiring. Offer your services and see where things lead.

If you want a simpler route you could go to work for a 3rd party medical records company who may even have work for you to do at home that allows you to service their database and records without you even leaving the house! Not a bad deal!

It just depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it. Some people need a job they can do at home. Some people need to have a job outside the house that offers benefits. Some people need to work with people. Some people like to work alone.

With the advent of online medical records tons of jobs are going to be created. Are you going to take one of them?