Can Online PHR – Patient Health Records help us manage health info better?
One thing that the fast paced and successful professionals of today have managed to successfully neglect is health! Can Online PHR – Patient Health Records help us get back on track and help us manage our health information better?
In the older days, people had family physicians. Every one in a family visits the same doctor, whom they generally know for many years. So, the doctor knows all the health conditions, allergies and previous history of their patients quite well.
But these days, since the world has become a Global Village, people keep moving around for better professional as well as personal opportunities. People spend so much time in their workplace (or) for their business that they don’t really take health-care seriously until they are reminded of the same by some ailment, etc.
Even if one is in the same place, doctors may not remember each patient’s medical history as they themselves are moving around and there are so many specialty consultants that one needs to refer to, these days. Of course, people go to multiple hospitals/ clinics as they too want choices.
As everyone knows, knowing a patient history is very vital in enabling faster diagnosis and treatment. One gets so many papers and reports from so many specialty consultants and over time most of them are lost! So, when one wants their eye-glass prescription from a couple of years ago, chances are that they are not available and they need to contact their eye clinic for the same.
Of course, doctors and hospitals maintain patient history (and need to give it to the patient if requested, perhaps for a small fee) but what if individuals can maintain their own medical history? That’s exactly what Online PHR – Patient Health Records enable us to do.
Let us say that one visits a general physician. The physician would carry out routine tests and give medication or suggest specialty consultants to get further diagnosis. If they give the medication by themselves, the test results / medical prescriptions, etc can be uploaded into your PHR records (stored online) either by the doctor or by yourself. In fact, it can even be uploaded by the pharmacist, if their system can be integrated with the PHR service used by the patient.
After some time, you might visit the specialty consultant. Again, there are test reports and prescriptions which are uploaded to your PHR records. Now, they may require you to check certain vital parameters like the heart rate, blood pressure, etc. routinely by oneself at home. These details are uploaded to the PHR database either by you or by the device itself! (by connecting to your computer/Internet through bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc).
So, when you visit the doctor next time, they can just go through your PHR details (if you authorize them to do so) and refer to the vital signs that may be required for treatment. In fact, the doctor can just go through the information regularly from any Internet connected computer, without you having to physically visit their place. If there is an abnormality in readings, perhaps they can contact you!
Over a period of few years, if the Online PHR – Patient Health Records are regularly updated, one can have information about all their past medical history from various hospitals/ specialty clinics/ doctors. Any information the patient might want is readily available (without having to contact the respective hospitals, etc).
Of course, things are not so perfect in the real world as PHR is a relatively new concept. Its difficult for people to start using such systems, unless they are required to do so. Further, every hospital has their own reporting/ management system and these reports may not always easily integrate with your online PHR system. So, its either double work or not updating. Of course, we know what one will choose!
It is also important for a PHR service provider to offer a common platform for various systems / medical devices to be able to integrate with it so that information could be automatically uploaded to individual PHR records without any intervention required from the patients. Unfortunately, universal standards for such integration do not exist with any PHR service provider.
Microsoft Health Vault is one such promising online PHR service provider. But the most important question still remains unanswered – Will people start using Online PHR’s and will there be standards to connect disparate islands of medical services into one common platform for the benefit of the patients?
A good essay on types of PHR, questions customers need to ask PHR service providers and information that needs to be included with PHR’s is available here (Suggested for further reading on PHR).