Tag Archives: Health Record

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Health Record Portability – Part 3 Problems Abound

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One of the challenges of managing your health information is that it comes in so many forms and formats.  It is not hard to find examples where the ball gets dropped.  Here are a few examples that I recently encountered that demonstrate this challenge.

Recently, my uncle who lives in a remote part of Pennsylvania had a heart attack.  Because the local hospital could not perform the required procedure, he was flown to a larger hospital.  There he had a cardiac catheterization and stents were placed in the arteries that supply blood to his heart (coronary arteries).  A day or two later when he was stable, he was taken by ambulance to the first hospital.  We had been told by the cardiologist who placed the stents that 2 were placed.  When we got to the first hospital after he was sent back there, the doctor who had reviewed his record from the second hospital said that he couldn’t find any documentation that any stents were placed.  The next day when my uncle’s local cardiologist looked at the record, he said that he found documentation of only 1 stent being placed.  It wasn’t until I was helping get things ready for his discharge home that I found 2 wallet cards, one for each stent, that were among the discharge papers from the second hospital mixed in the plastic bag that was sent with him.  These cards specify the kind of stent, its size & location in the arteries of the heart.  It would make better sense if this information would be in a more prominent place in the hospital chart so any doctor can easily find it!

Another example happened to me personally.  I recently saw an orthopedic surgeon about persistent pain in my knee for several months.  X-rays showed some arthritis but nothing very significant.  After another month, I noticed that one spot on the knee was especially tender.  Thinking that it could be a torn meniscus, the surgeon ordered an MRI.  A few days after the test, he called & told me, other than the arthritis, it was normal.  Well, because of continued pain that limited my activities, I saw a rheumatologist to whom I had the records from the orthopedic surgeon sent.  After a few minutes, the rheumatologist asked if I knew the result of the MRI.  After I told him that I was told it was normal, he showed me the report that indicated I had a small tear in the meniscus and some other abnormalities.  He assured me that surgical repair was unnecessary, but it left me wondering why the surgeon never mentioned it.  I believe he looked at the wrong report.   I wonder how often that happens?  In my case, it didn’t make a difference.  But how often does it?

So, how do you make sure all your important medical information stays “attached” to you and can be easily found?  The health care system should do this, but there are too many moving parts.  As I said in my previous post things are slowly moving in the right direction.  But the question is – What can we do now?

In my next post I’ll present some strategies that may help to ensure health record portability until the health care system catches up to the digital age.

Please share your experiences, ideas and comments.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob

Health Record Portability – Part 2 Some Progress To Report

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In my last post, I outlined the need for Health Record Portability as well as the obstacles to its widespread implementation.  However, there are a few inroads being made.  Here are some of those initiatives.

From the healthcare provider viewpoint, some communities have launched their own Health Information Network (HIN) that enables community physicians, hospitals, labs & other healthcare providers to share their information. You can think of it as a healthcare information utility that supports health information exchange.  This sharing is always dependent upon the consent of the individual patient.  One example with which I am familiar is the East Tennessee Health Information Network (etHIN) in Knoxville, Tennessee.  The hospital systems & physician practices pay a fee to etHIN to be able to share their patients’ health information.  One feature that would have helped me to keep track of my pneumonia vaccine is a Vaccination Gateway that etHIN provides.

But what can you do as a patient, especially if you live in a community without a health information network?  From a non-technological perspective, you can keep paper copies of your medical record.  Usually you’ll want to organize them by practice or medical issue, but if you have some condition that gets monitored by some lab test, you’ll want to group them together.

There is a more modern approach that you may want to consider if your physician’s EMR system supports it.  Microsoft has a free cloud storage application called HealthVault that can help you manage all your electronic medical information in one place.  Once you set up your account, you can ask your physicians (past and present) who use an electronic medical record to send your files to your HealthVault account.  Not all EMRs can provide your records in a format compatible with HealthVault.  It is far from perfect, but it is a beginning.  Hopefully we will see more EMRs that are compatible with HealthVault in the years to come.  You can also upload any records that you have scanned into your computer. A great feature is the ability to create an Emergency Medical Information card that includes your allergies, medications you take, health conditions you have and emergency contact information.  It also has access information so an Emergency Room physician can view your HealthVault record.  It can be folded to fit in your wallet or purse.

Next time I’ll share some examples of situations I’ve encountered where health information sharing just hasn’t worked and, in a later post, some possible ways to prevent these problems.  As always, please share your thoughts and comments.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob