I am curious why, in this computer age, so many professions are behind the times. And who pays for their stone age processes? We, the consumers, do! For example, you go to the doctor’s office. What’s the first thing you do? You have to fill out a ton of forms. Now he sends you to a specialist. What’s the first thing you do? Fill out a ton of forms. Now he sends you to yet another place to get blood work or an X-Ray. What’s the first thing you do? Fill out a ton of forms. And what do you notice about all of these forms? They may all look slightly different, but the information that they ask you to provide is the same. Since we actually live in the 21st century, not the 1950′s, you would think that all of these forms could be placed on a central database that all doctors can access so that we, the customers, only have to fill out one set of forms, not 50. That may seem like an exaggeration, but that depends on your health issues and how many different doctor’s you need to visit. Let me ask you, when you’re sick, are you in the mood to fill out forms before seeing the doctor? I don’t think so.

And doctor’s aren’t the only ones behind the times. Try going around to different car dealers shopping for the best deal. Each car dealer will ask you to fill out forms before they give you their final price. These too could be placed on a central database, so that all car dealers could access them. This is what I would call customer service. If you are afraid of identity theft, what is worse, trying to keep up security on 50 computer systems or one? By having to enter your information on many different systems, in my opinion, the chance of one of those systems being behind on their security updates is far greater than if your information was stored on one system, such as a central healthcare database.

I know this is a radical idea for many, but I believe it would save time, probably money and the security of your important personal data could be better managed.