Your personal health: My fair PHR

October 7, 2008

Image via WikipediaRecent visits to various medical facilities have been accompanied by filling up a lot of long forms, essentially filling up the same information. It is highly inefficient, and frankly a waste of time, especially if you have to fill up a form “if anything has changed since your last visit”. Talk about not following the principle of DRY. This is why I think the Personal Health Record is not just important, but essential. In other words, an electronic record, which follows some acceptable standards, and one that you can provide to a physician or laboratory when required (like before an initial visit). Any changes to your record, e.g. allergies, change of address, can be broadcast automatically to all approved physicians.

So there, I want a PHR, and I want every physician I see to accept a PHR-ingestion system that allows me to broadcast my PHR to them (with appropriate authentication and identity systems in place), one they can then annotate appropriately. Results/records can then be broadcast back into my record (should this be done upon request or automatically?), so that I can share them with another physician if required.

It’s time we moved our health into the 21st century.