Seven Reasons to Have a Personal Health Record

Seven Reasons to Have a Personal Health Record

A digital personal health record (PHR) is a computer software application that allows you to store a variety of personal health information including illnesses, hospitalizations, encounters (visits and communications) Immunizations, surgeries, lab results And family history. Personal health history differs from an electronic medical record that is a similar application with much more comprehensive features that health care providers use, such as insurance scheduling and billing, in addition to storing patient health data. Owning and maintaining an up-to-date digital personal health record has many benefits and is the cornerstone of proactive participation in health care and better healthcare experiences.

One of the main reasons for having your health information stored electronically is that it improves the quality of medical care you receive, allowing you to be better prepared for doctor visits, equipped with the accurate and pertinent information your doctor needs to follow an optimal course of treatment. Because vital data can be transferred to your doctor more efficiently, more time can be spent during the visit focusing on diagnosis and treatment rather than information gathering. This latter fact is of the utmost importance given the fact that health care providers in general have busier schedules and less time to spend with individual patients.

A digital PHR also ensures the availability of your health information in a readable form and facilitates the flow of that information between your health care providers and whether a single doctor is treating you or several doctors are participating in your care. The information in the file may be transmitted verbally, in print, digitally in an external medium, such as a flash drive, and in some cases via the Internet prior to office visits. This ease of transfer of medical data is vital given the fact that 18% of medical errors are due to inadequate availability of patient information. On the other hand, medical records are frequently lost, doctors are withdrawn, hospitals or HMOs purge old records to save storage space, and employers frequently change group health insurance plans resulting in patients needing Change doctors and request the transfer of medical records that are sometimes illegible. Despite efforts by the government to encourage physicians to keep medical records on a computer, that is, use electronic medical records (DMEs) also called electronic health records (EHRs) in order to reduce errors, Fact is only 5% of doctors keep medical records in the computer and many of those who have purchased EMRs have never implemented effectively or continued to use them in their practices.

Another compelling reason to have an up-to-date personal health record is that it could save your life. The Centers for Disease Control on its annual list of the leading cause of death included medical aircraft listed six ahead of diabetes and pneumonia. Approximately 120,000 Americans die each year as a result of preventable medical errors in hospitals, and who knows what the total is including patients treated outside the hospital. Equally disappointing is the fact that most emergency rooms cannot adequately recover their critical health information at a time of emergency.

The fourth reason to have a PHR is to reduce your health care expenses. Generally, physicians use subjective and objective information about you to arrive at a diagnosis and treatment plan. Subjective data is information that can be expressed by you such as your symptoms, and the objective data is information that can be measured and recorded, such as physical examination findings, X-ray reports, and laboratory test results. Many treatment diagnoses and decisions may be based largely on subjective information obtained from the patient or the patient's family, but if sufficient and appropriate subjective data cannot be obtained, the health care provider tends to rely more on objective data, including X-rays and laboratory tests that result in higher treatment costs. X-rays and laboratory tests are often performed unnecessarily because they were performed recently but the patient did not know the results or even knew they were performed, feeding the flames of cost.

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