We need to put health care records online. The V.A. does that. That will -- that will reduce costs. - John McCain. For a maverick who openly admits not knowing how to use a computer, it came as a bit of a surprise to me in the last debate to hear that John McCain KNOWS it's a good idea to put health care records online. Aside from the obvious invasion of privacy violations that such a policy would undoubtedly create, the idea that it would reduce costs is highly doubtful. It basically amounts to a handout of government contracts to document management companies, possibly in the billions, with absolutely NO proven cost/benefit analysis from his campaign. In addition, has it occured to Mr. McCain that health records are kept by doctors, insurance companies, hospitals and employers? Is John McCain proposing that they all just head down to Staples, buy their own scanners and hire their own extra staff to scan, index, catalog and maintain hundreds of millions of pages of pages of records. What software does he propose everyone use and does he know how much those systems cost? And who exactly will coordinate this operation, or mission... the Department of Earmarks? You'd think people in my business would be absolutely thrilled about this baseless assumption. And you're probably right. But I think this cuts to the very heart of this campaign because I don't need a handout in the form of a government contract. I need a government that realizes it already has a contract to the American people to "think" before they speak about businesses that they have no understanding of whatsoever. I'll make this perfectly clear. I believe wholeheartedly in scanning and imaging as a practical and necessary tool for the smooth and efficient handling of an office's day to day workflow. However, the notion that putting documents online reduces paper-output is erroneous.

Take the law profession for example. Before computers, attorneys drafted only a few copies of pleadings, contracts and correspondence. They did this because of the time involved in editing errors and mistakes. Legal professionals today have the benefit of editing a document as much as they want because of computers. As a result, they print out many more documents and increase the demand for paper, which has devastating effects on the environment as well. Having worked for government and in records management for the last ten years, including as the Records Manager for Trucker Huss, a venerated Employee Benefits firm with some of the most respected HIPAA attorneys in the world, I feel I am entitled as say "Raf The Records Manager" to call him out on this. The HIPAA law, while achieving some of its goals to fight against identity theft and abuse, was nevertheless a multi-million dollar donation to the tech companies that were enlisted to execute the specifics of the law. The cost to law firms and corporations to restructure their records polices and procedures was unnecessary and unwarranted. The blacking out of names and social security numbers on patient records and other documents may have sounded like a good idea, but tell that to the thousands of medical office managers around the country. That HIPAA requirement as well as a number of others impeded office workflow because it was designed by politicians who had absolutely no input from actual end users or the individuals their law would actually impact. If John McCain really wants to save some money on records management, maybe he should ask a records manager, a librarian, a file clerk, or ANYBODY who actually works with records for advice. Or maybe he should ask "Joe The 72 year old Doctor" or "Tito the 55 year old Nurse" how they feel about putting down their pens and paper and buying a machine they don't know how to use instead. Records are kept best, and records management overhead costs are kept lowest when organizations and government departments avoid gimmicks like "the paperless office" and take a more thoughtful approach to managing their information, and the information of others.