Change the World: Call for CMA/AMA Policy Proposals

Frustrated with the vagaries of today’s health care system? Would you like to see something done to fix it? Do you have some new and/or innovative policy ideas you would like to share?

Any SFMS member has the opportunity to influence local, state, and even national policy on medical and public health issues via our elected SFMS delegation to the CMA and AMA. Our delegation, chaired by SFMS past-president Stephen Follansbee, MD, has a record of bringing successful ideas to the state and national levels, where they have been translated into professional policy and even legislation.

Resolutions adopted at past CMA and AMA sessions include reforming health care financing, encourage universal immunizations for children, and protecting the doctor-patient relationship. SFMS also effectively developed policy to curtail the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture that was adopted by the AMA and most recently by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2011 (S. 1211).

Please submit any issues or concerns and potential policy solutions we can bring to the table on your behalf by leaving a comment or contacting Steve Heilig at heilig@sfms.org.

Bill would require ‘track changes’ on electronic medical records

California Watch reports that a bill working its way through the state Legislature would make it more difficult for health care providers to modify or delete electronic medical records and leave no record of the change.

Changes to an EHR (electronic health record) can go unnoticed and can be harder to trace than changes made to paper records,” said Sen.  Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, the author of SB 850, in a hearing last month.  The bill passed the Senate on May 31.  It will be heard in the Assembly’s Health and Judiciary committees in the next few weeks.  Click here to read the full article.

Source: http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/bill-would-require-track-changes-electronic-medical-records-10694