Have yow prepared your personal health record?
It is important that you do and you can do it here.
Click here for your Free Health Record Template(Form).
Why is it important?
Personal Control
The medical system is so impenetrable that it mystifies even the most knowledgeable. David Brailer, MD, the President's senior advisor on health information technology use this analogy about our healthcare: " It's like walking into a restaurant where you don't get a menu, you don't get any choice of food you eat, they don't tell you what it is they're serving you and they don't tell you what it's going to cost- - -"
In a Special Report in Readers Digest of April 2006, Kerry Howley writes: "Medical information is still kept on handwritten charts and in bulging files, a situation that encourages missed diagnoses, incorrect drug dosages, miscommunication between specialists, and frustration for patients."
What better explanation for the need for a Personal Health Record where doctors write in their diagnosis and advice, details about medicines and other health related information. You will be in control of the information. You can check out treatment options and side effects of the recommended medicines. Remember, research has found that people tend to forget up to 80 percent of what a doctor tells them as soon as they leave his/her office. With your Personal Health Record in the HealthRecordRegistry you will have a written record that is always available and under your control.
Safety
Dr. C. Martin Harris, Chief Information Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, reported that an estimated 1 million paper medical records was "essentially missing" as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Those records are lost forever. That would never have happened had the records been safely kept at the Health Record Registry.
Emergencies:
In 2005, there were 43,000 traffic fatalities with hundreds of thousand others seeking emergency treatment. Over 800,000 people suffer from dog bites every year and half of them need emergency treatment. Emergency room physicians often endure close calls because they do not have any knowledge of a patient's medical conditions, allergies or medicines. Your personal health record on the Health Record Registry may make the difference between life and death.
Accuracy:
David J. Brailer, M.D. recently National Coordinator for Health Information Technology of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: "In health care now, we have a quality problem. The Institute of Medicine says that about 100,000 people die every year because of medical errors. That could be dramatically reduced by as much as 85 percent by switching to electronic health records."
Medical errors may occur at many levels. However, one source of errors is that patients forget what the doctor told them. Research shows that up to 80 % of patients forget what the doctor told them as soon as they leave the doctor's office. And that includes information about their medicines.
When you have your Personal Health Record on the Health Record Registry, you will have this information in writing by your doctor. You can control that the medical information is accurate and that the best medicines are prescribed.
Illness Prevention:
Secretary Mike Leavitt of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:
"75 percent of health costs are spent on treating diseases that could be avoided by healthy living".
Tests confirm that setting up a Personal Health Record focuses people's attention on their health and their health issues. The activity of preparing a personal health record may show health patterns that will lead to illnesses unless one changes the way one lives!
Quality Control:
Dr. Brailer makes the point that a Personal Health Record, available electronically, and under YOUR personal control can protect your life by saving you from medical errors.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, doctors were missing clinical information for nearly every 7 patients they saw. 44 percent reported that this was at least somewhat likely to adversely affect patients and close to 60 percent of doctors said that that potentially resulted in delayed care or additional services like unnecessary laboratory tests, X-rays etc.
Or
As William Carriere, MD, member Family Care Partners in Jacksonville, Florida says:
" What people don't realize is how incredibly inefficient it is to chase down paper charts" i.e. health records.
As you will know from appointments with your own doctor, individual files are usually based on the doctor's hand written notes and kept in manila folders in huge filing cabinets.
By registering your personal health record with the Health Record Registry, you not only securely protect your personal health information. You also control it and you decide who can see it. And, it is always available.
How?
Security:
When developing the Health Record Registry, we searched for the most advanced privacy rules available. We found them in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries - Norway, Sweden and Denmark - have developed the most stringent laws in the world to protect personal electronic information. Already, in these countries over 90 percent of physicians and medical institution have health records securely computerized. Their laws and rules are more rigorous than anything we have in the United States at the present time. We have used these rules to develop the Health Record Registry.
The main feature is that we de-personalize all information. Your personal health record will not have your name on it. Not your address or telephone number or Social Security number. Still, you will immediately know that your personal health record is indeed yours, as soon as you see it.