The Endangered Medical Record: Ensuring Its Integrity in the Age of Informatics

This book serves two purposes: (1) it is a comprehensive textbook on disease classification, coding and coding systems, medical records, and the history of health information systems in the U.S., including extensive appendices, bibliography, and index; (2) it exposes serious problems in our national health information "system" and proposes solutions. Written for healthcare and information professionals and students, the book is nevertheless accessible to the layperson.

From the Foreword by Michael Millenson, author of Demanding Medical Excellence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age:

Florence Nightingale would have demanded that everyone read this book. ... as medicine has moved from a quill-and-pen sensibility ... to the era of the microchip, the importance of the properly coded medical record has grown exponentially. ... Coding provides the lens through which we view everything from illness prevalence to quality improvement effectiveness to financial trends. Yet as this book disturbingly details, that lens is pockmarked with distortions.

... The growing need of the provider community for accurate information about the practice of evidence-based medicine, the growing need of purchasers for data on the value of what they are buying, and the growing need of policymakers for precise tracking information all provide the basic ingredients for a full-blown crisis. Given the entrenched investment in the current system, and the investment of time and money it will take to bring about change, a crisis is manifestly what is needed to transform this issue from a wonk concern to a White House one.

Fortunately, [the authors] have provided us with not only a call to arms but with suggested solutions, as well. In doing so, they have managed to produce a book that is both written in astoundingly plain English, yet backed by blue-ribbon technical sophistication.