A few weeks back I listened to an interview on the BBC in which a maimed Iraq war veteran complained that he was not able to get medical help from the State (US governemnt) as his Medical Records went missing. He narated that after he was injured, before his flight out of Iraq, the medical officer put his records on his bed and told him to hold on to them. He doesn't remeber how they went missing during the journey home. He has failed to trace them or copies of them.
When I stumbled across this article http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/10/05/microsoft.healthvault.ap/index.html on CNN about Microsoft new website for managing personal health and medical information, the war veteran was not far from my mind. How much easier would it be if he had both electronic and paper records. He would not need to move with the paper ones.
The artilce says, and I quote, "The free site can store medical histories, immunization and other records from doctors' offices and hospital visits, including data from devices like heart monitors. It is also tied to a health information search engine the software maker launched last month.
Users can dole out access to different slices of their health data via e-mailed invitations to doctors, family members and other people as the need arises".
Wouldn't it be great to be able to manage your own health records. Each time you Visit a doctor, you have upload the details onto your profile. No need to carry medical history when you relocate or are attended to by another. You simply give access to certain information to your new physician or other concerned parties.
I know electronic health management systems have been treated with a lot of scepticism as they bring in issues of possible inappropriate disclosure of confidential or sensitive details. But I really feel such systems will simply keeping of records and help in making more informed diagnoses of conditions.
Check out the health vault http://www.healthvault.com/
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