What are the different parts of Health record?

There are seven key elements that are needed for a basic health information record about you these include:

• DEMOGRAPHICS
• LIST OF MEDICATIONS
• DRUG ALLERGIES
• DIAGNOSIS / PROBLEM LIST
• HISTORY OF TESTS AND PROCEDURES
• RECORD OF IMMUNIZATIONS
• PERTINENT FAMILY MEDICAL HISTORY

Demographic information relate to your Name,age and contact address.This also includes information about your insurance and employer.You should also include contact information of your immediate relative or neighbor in case you are involved in a serious health emergency situation.

List of medication includes your current medication dosage and also your past medication history if any.

Allergies include any adverse reactions to Drugs or environment or food.

Diagnosis list includes any previous medical or surgical conditions for which you have had undergone any treatment.These could also include minor or major procedures.

As the name suggests History or tests and procedures include any diagnostic investigation that you may have undertaken in the recent past.

List of immunization includes childhood as well as adult immunization taken.

Pertinent family medical history is essential if there has been any major family illness which affected your immediate family members.

All these information can be carried in any handy format either in paper based or USB memory drive.Digital records have an advantage in that multiple copies could be created form them and also update of information is easy.You could also password protect these information so that only you could see them.But,the emergency information should be easily accessible to health care providers.Only your detailed medical history should be made accessible by you alone.

Although these sounds easy in theory,yet to to put them into practice is very difficult.So,that’s the reason one should choose an commercially available health software,which enables you to easily enter your health information and also update them and gives you control over your health information data.

The main caveat with USB based medical information storage is that they could be lost or damaged and you could lose all your stored health information.

The other option is to use an on-line method for storage of health related information.Today there are many vendors which offer free to paid information storage.These have significant benefits than the USB drive based systems due to the fact that they are available anytime,anywhere and always.You need to have access to Internet in order to access the information.However,privacy and security of your health data is of paramount importance when you are choosing these online providers.

Have we reached the tipping point?

This is a very difficult question to analyze,as still many consumers are not aware of the term Personal Health Record.There is no consensus definition about the term.There are well more than 200 vendors in the marketplace trying to sell Personal health record products.
Various organizations have now started working on developing a working definition for Personal health record.Even the HL-7 organization which focused on Electronic Health Record is moving on working definition of Personal health record.But,when will all these definitions see the light of day?Again a difficult question to answer.

Will personal health records really benefit physicians and also hospitals.Again that is a very difficult question.If personal health records are really personal,then they need to be populated by Individuals,questions arise about their authenticity.If there is a extensive personal health data,then the physician will have to wade through all these data before coming onto a working diagnosis of any patient,this adds to confusion and also could create avenues for potential litigations in future.So,will physicians adopt PHRs widely?

What if patients like to store their Personal health records in their own format?May be a USB key or just a plain paper based format?Will Physicians and hospitals accept them?
What if the patients donot have their health records on Microsoft Health Vault but would prefer Google Health-(due to arrive in early 2008)?

These Questions will definitely need to be answered before we embark on the road to get Personal health records for all.

Although the term personal health record or commonly known as PHR has been around for many decades,it has reached widespread notice only in the past couple of years.With the burgeoning growth of vendors of PHR product during the dot-com bubble phase had resulted in numerous PHR products flooding the market.

This added confusion about what does PHR mean?

Is it collection of only your health records or also other personal information like financial and legal information.Also how should it be stored?Paper based format in a book or folder or electronically using word processor software and storing it in your desktop or home computer hard drive or portable method using CD or USB drive.

Who should enter the data?Patients themselves or physicians or any other third party sources.

The growth of PHR in the last decade had also resulted in increased research and developmental funding towards PHR.But,the confusion around the term still exists.Many prominent non-profit organisations like Markle foundation had tried to define PHR.but it is not an consensus’s decision.These have resulted in added confusion around the term.

The National Alliance for Health Information Technology has recently announced an initiative to define some basic health information technology terms.This will hopefully decrease the confusion among consumers about what exactly is PHR?

Although,there are myriad number of vendors selling personal health record products,you should always undertake due diligence when choosing the right vendor.Many of them sell USB flash drive based version of Personal health record product,which are a good short term solution,mainly if you are traveling.But,on the long term online based record offer better option.

Some of the notable features to be looked when choosing a vendor are:

1. Is it a Stable company-if it sells an online version of Personal health record product.You do not want to end up loosing all your vital health records if the company ends belly up.
2. Does it have an secure server,if so where is the data hosted.Many of the companies claim to have secure servers,but the data will be hosted at an shared server in some remote unknown country.
3. What is the privacy policy regarding your health data-is it mined with personal identifying information or in general.Many of the companies sell your personal health data.it is one of the ways of making money or revenue generation.But,if the data is de-personalized like they do research meta analysis,then it is fine.but if there are some personal identifying trails then it can lead to problems.
4. Does the company perform audit trails of data entry and retrieval-This is extremely important to know who enters and exists the database server.

These are some of the basic features that you should look at a personal health vendor,before you make a decision of buying a personal health record product.

Last month,when Microsoft launched its much awaited PHR as a platform-Health Vault,PHR market had finally arrived,although the tipping point has not reached,but this will be a certainty when Google launches their version of Personal health record.

Unfourtunatley,there are several myths surronding Personal health record and also about Health Vault.

1.Personal Health Records offered by Microsoft corporation is a real PHR-NO! it is a platform in which many earlier vendors of PHR products have joined,with the storage of data done at Microsoft centers.Hence,the name Health Vault.Health vault is not exactly a PHR.

2.PHR offers panacea to all the ills of health care industry-by reducing errors dramatically-Up until now there has been no studies which show how PHR work and benefit health care industry.Physicians and also patients are slow to adopt the use of PHR because of the issue of population of health data-Who is going to do that?Health care worker or the patient himself?

3.PHR are cheap-Although many vendors of PHR offer the product for free-Free does not necessarily mean good.Because it costs money to host the data and maintain them in long run.So how do they make money-Is it non-profit or purely profit.If so,will your health data be sold or used for any other purpose like research or advancement of Health car?

4.PHR are easy to maintain-Contrary to what is described in the media and in several online sources,PHR are difficult to maintain,Imagine writing about your health data every day of your life,entering information about your any medical investigation or surgical procedure,all these are laborious task-which many of us detest.

5.All PHR are equal-Not all in the market are created equal,some have excellent features while majority of them lack even some basic essential features.Design and development of a PHR requires immense skill sets not only among physicians but also among technologists.

So,the next time you use a PHR use it with caution.

These information could be consolidated in your personal health record file.It is important to start building your personal health record file as soon as possible because you never know when you will have an medical emergency.Access to your personal health record will help health care providers provide timely support and also help them in making right decisions about treatment.

You could visit the website of AHIMA at Myphr for additional information and also you could visit this site at AHRQ to get more information about how to prepare yourself prior to any procedure medical or surgical.

Despite the presence of numerous vendors in the market, numerous studies have shown that only few people are remotely aware of personal health record concept.Many would like to have one,but don’t know how to start with one.

The best course to take will be to start looking around the internet for sources which provide free personal health records and start using them before moving on to paid version. Of course,the products in the market come in all varieties-good.bad.ugly.Free does not necessarily mean bad at the same time as highly priced does not mean good.

Many of the paid version PHR fall woefully short on quality of delivering the right kind of information.They are difficult,messy to use and do not serve any purpose at all. Imagine,using them during your medical emergencies when you need them the most and you cannot access them.

Since,my last post Microsoft has already launched its Health Vault-which is an online based PHR,This is a congregation of many PHR providers around USA.Although a good idea now, the future remains to be seen. Many have launched a vitriolic attack on the privacy issues and about Microsoft handling personal health records.But,it is still in early stages now,and we need to watch it carefully before we can denounce its usefulness as just another vapor ware.

Microsoft is a billion dollar software company and I am sure they would have expended lot of thought into developing health vault,and it is not just another run of the mill product.It has a great future.It is still a better product than many existing products in the market today.

We we carefully think about the future of our health,then I am sure everyone will think of making a record of all illness and investigation we undertake.

Health is defined as not just absence of disease but a state of mental well being.So having a record of personal health will go a long way in defining the way we see our health in future.

Support wellness activities

• Improve understanding of health issues
• Increase sense of control over health
• Increase control over access to personal health information
• Support timely, appropriate preventive services
• Support healthcare decisions and responsibility for care
• Strengthen communication with providers
• Verify accuracy of information in provider records
• Support home monitoring for chronic diseases
• Support understanding and appropriate use of medications
• Support continuity of care across time and providers
• Manage insurance benefits and claims
• Avoid duplicate tests
• Reduce adverse drug interactions and allergic reactions
• Reduce hassle through online appointment scheduling and prescription refills
• Increase access to providers via e-visits

Healthcare Providers

• Improve access to data from other providers and the patients themselves
• Increase knowledge of potential drug interactions and allergies
• Avoid duplicate tests
• Improve medication compliance
• Provide information to patients for both healthcare and patient services purposes
• Provide patients with convenient access to specific information or services
• (e.g., lab results, Rx refills, e-visits)
• Improve documentation of communication with patients
• Payers Improve customer service (transactions and information)
• Promote portability of patient information across plan
• Support wellness and preventive care
• Provide information and education to beneficiaries
• Employers Support wellness and preventive care
• Provide convenient service
• Improve workforce productivity
• Promote empowered healthcare consumers
• Use aggregate data to manage employee health

Societal/Population Health Benefits

• Strengthen health promotion and disease prevention
• Improve the health of populations
• Expand health education opportunities

Personal Health Records and Personal Health Record Systems:A Report and Recommendations from the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics

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By combining better Internet search tools, the vast resources of the Web and online personal health records, both companies are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care.“What’s behind this is the mass consumerization of health information,” said Dr. David J. Brailer, the former health information technology coordinator in the Bush administration, who now heads a firm that invests in health ventures.It is too soon to know whether either Google or Microsoft will make real headway. Health care, experts note, is a field where policy, regulation and entrenched interests tend to slow the pace of change, and technology companies have a history of losing patience.

More:

Screen shots of Google Health:

courtesy:Google Blogoscoped

Can Microsoft be far behind.

Wait for further information in this space.