Medical Record to PDF law

One small change in the law that would make sense and head of a few problems in HealthCare.

Problem: Electronic health records are stored in proprietary formats. In a dispute with the software provider, doctors may not be able to access existing records.

Solution: Require that records be turned over in a timely manner, much the same as the requirements for lawyers returning all client files. For electronic files, require that PDFs or equivalent printable information for each patient be turned over. At the worst, a hospital could fall back onto paper records.

While this would have small regulatory burden on the industry, it would relieve concerns about adopting electronic records and would serve the public good.