My Own PHR Journey

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Mon 2 Oct 2006

My PHR and My Conditions

Posted by Jean under Diary of my PHR , My Own PHR Journey , PHRs and the Real World
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The building of my own online personal health record continues.

I’m at ihealthrecord.com’s "Add Conditions and Patient’s Medical History" page, where I’m asked to "select current and past Conditions and Diagnoses. You do not need to list Allergies here. For Allergies, please use the Allergies section of the iHealthRecord."

Well, shoot. You mean you can wait to hear about how penicillin makes me, as my mother puts it — describing the one and only time I received the wonder drug at age 2 — "swell up like a blowfish"?

Fine; you’ll have something to look forward to.

The medical history page lists a cornucopia of different diseases, conditions, habits and psychiatric disorders, from the serious:

    Polio
    Lung Cancer
    Alzheimer’s disease
    Syphilis
    Stroke

to the, well, not-so-serious:

    Warts
    Acne
    Athlete’s Foot
    Birthmarks

as well as what I would call "bad habits that could lead to a serious disorder":

    Smoking
    Drinking
There’s no listing on this page of what I would call "good habits that might mitigate the ‘bad habits that could lead to a serious disorder,’ or at the least allow you to say ‘Yes, well, I may smoke, but I run 10 miles a day.’"
 
Next comes a "Females Only" section that offers the following for consideration: abnormal pap, discomfort with sex, tubal pregnancy, bleeding problems, breast mass or cyst, contraception, cyst or abscess of vulva, endrometriosis, fibroids, irregular periods, menopause, miscarriage, nipple discharge, ovarian cysts, post-menopausal bleeding, postpartum depression, pregnancy, toxemia.

Next is the "Males Only" section which lists (are you ready?): prostrate problems.

And that’s it for the fellas.

Now, I ask you, is that fair?

Be a woman filling out this page and all the ob/gyn appointments, all the mammograms, all the pap smears, all the visits on all of the examining tables with the all of the stirrups and all of the "could you scooch forward just a little bit more please," they all come rushing back.

But if you’re a man: "Prostrate problems? Nope. Never. Nada. Not me. On to the next page."

Not fair, not fair at all….

 

 

Mon 25 Sep 2006

My Personal Health Record and My Secret Crush

Posted by Jean under My Own PHR Journey , PHRs and the Real World
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As I’ve been building my own personal health record and listing my medications and medical conditions, I’ve been thinking of the things that I shouldn’t put there. Things that are important to my psyche, but even though my health care provider in a perfect world would be interested in what’s going on with me psychologically, things that would qualify as "too much information."For example:

  • I may be middle aged (yes, I am; say it loud and proud!) but I have a huge crush on the actor Topher Grace, star of the sitcom "That ‘70’s Show" and soon-to-be-star of the next "Spider-Man" movie. I’m nuts about my husband (who’s a doppelganger for George Clooney, thank you very much). But that Topher….
  • Should my nurse practitioner know about my weakness for Smarties® candies? Maybe. Maybe not.
  • If I’m clothes shopping and I come across an item that’s obviously vanity sized and the pair of pants are marked a size smaller than what I know to be my true size, will I buy them? You bet I will!
  • Ditto for the fact that I’m not above cutting out a size tag when a pair of dress slacks that fit extremely well are a size I’d rather not admit to when I get home and hang them in my closet.
  • What about the times I’ve called in sick to work, but am I truly under the weather? No. I’m just too chicken to say "Boss, it’s such a beautiful day, I’m caught up on my work and so think I’ll spend it going for a hike in the nearby mountains."

All of these things tell something about myself that might be useful to my doctor: I’m not above getting moon-eyed over an actor who is several years younger than me; I’ve a huge sweet tooth; I’ve issues about my weight; and I’m not always truthful when a lie is easier.

 

Sat 23 Sep 2006

My Personal Health Record Will Send Me Homework

Posted by Jean under Diary of my PHR , My Own PHR Journey
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An interesting thing happened when I went back to creating my own personal health record last night. The free online PHR software offered by ihealthrecord.com allows me to skip over the parts of the record I’ve already filled out, so I went right to the medications page again – wanting to be sure I did check off the correct medications – and when I did, up popped another page, this one telling me about the educational programs in which I could enroll. Some of the programs are:

    Antibiotics: What You Should Know by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Cholesterol: Treatment of High Cholesterol With Lifestyle Changes by Medem Colorectal Cancer Screening: For People of Average Risk Age 50+ by the American Cancer Society (ACS) Immunization: Vaccinations and Your Child by Medem

And 30 more, for a total of 34 programs.The sign-up page told me to:

"Please enroll in the programs that are appropriate for you by checking the box(es) next to the program name. You will receive educational information (in the form of Secure Messages in your Message Inbox) on a periodic basis regarding your conditions and/or medications."

This is a very nice aspect of this PHR. I signed up for two programs and, while I’ve yet to receive anything — homework, fun! — in my inbox in the 24 hours since I registered, I’m looking forward to reading the offerings. Next on my creating-my-PHR to-do list: giving the record the details, the skinny, the nitty-gritty, on why I’m taking the meds I said I am.

 

Thu 21 Sep 2006

200 Drugs from Which to Choose

Posted by Jean under Diary of my PHR , My Own PHR Journey
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I’ve started building my own personal health record at ihealthrecord.com, and when I log in again to continue filling it out, up pops an “overview” page that advises me to review and update my PHR at least once every six months. The page also lets me know I can print out a copy of my record at any time as well as a wallet size copy so that I “can keep your important health info with you at all times.” It also states, somewhat breathlessly:

No more filling out the clipboard! Before your next doctor’s appointment, click on iHealthRegistration at the top right corner of this page to generate a printable form that you can bring with you to your doctor’s office. I click on the links for all these copies and what strikes me most is how similar the form looks to the one I fill out whenever I visit a physician for the first time. It’s as if ihealthrecord.com has discovered that doctors will accept anything a new patient gives them, so long as it looks as if it’s a form their receptionist gave out. (”Looks like one of mine, all bland and officious. And the handwriting! Looks like typing. I like this new patient already. Send her in!”) The next page of the PHR asks typical questions: my race, primary language, height, weight, blood type, marital status and number of children.I have one child, yet I’ve never given birth, but the form at this point assumes a child means I’ve been pregnant. Whether a woman has been pregnant or given birth or not is important information for her doctor to know. I think this PHR would better serve female users by asking more detailed questions, such as number of pregnancies and if those pregnancies were carried to term.The next page asks me to list my medications. Which intrigues me – why ask this now, so soon within the PHR? I can see headings for subsequent sections of the record on the left side of the page: conditions/medical history, allergies, emergency contact, surgeries/procedures and so on. Why is ihealthrecord.com interested in my prescription list before it knows of any illnesses and treatments I may have had?

I can pick from a list of 20 common medications, from Zyrtec, Lipitor, Ibuprofen, etc. There’s also a scrolldown menu of 200 additional drugs and as I look through it, it floors me how many of them I recognize: Actonel, Allegra, Ambien, Celebrex. Detrol LA, Elidel, Flomax. And those are just the drugs that begin with the letters A-F. Note to drug manufacturers: Advertising works..

And then I start to get silly. Two hundred drugs from which to choose? What would happen if I select all of them? Will the online PHR form throw me a pop up warning: “200 MEDICATIONS! 200!? Surely you jest!!!??”

So I click on all 200, hit Enter and all that appears is a list of the meds. No questions asked. No warnings. No shrieks coming from my speakers.

But when I go to remove those drugs from my record, I can only do so one by one. One. By. One. Takes me 15 minutes.

That’ll teach me to experiment with drugs.

 

Thu 31 Aug 2006

About this blog and why I feel Personal Health Records are important

Posted by Coop-love under My Own PHR Journey
1 Comment 

I’m Jean and welcome to my blog about – Personal Health Records. Why they’re important and useful. What you and I can do to keep our records private. Personal health record software and tools. Medical record privacy issues. How I work to manage my personal health record. Health record privacy news.

Privacy, whether it concerns my Social Security Number, my bank account, my personal affairs, what I spend my money on – what I like to do for fun – is important to me. It’s MY information and I believe I should be the one to dole it out to others as I – and only I – see fit.

This belief that my privacy is sacrosanct flows to my health record. In fact, my health or medical record is at the top of my list of personal information I feel I should control.

That’s what this blog is about and it will evolve with your contribution. In fact, I hope to begin a dialog with readers. I figure we can help each other on this journey, as we swap links, ideas, dispense news and talk about the issues.

 A little more about me….I’m married with one child, now 10, a little girl we adopted from Russia two years ago this coming Christmas. Becoming a parent was and continues to be a wonderful experience, yet it required that my husband and I reveal some information to the U.S. and Russian governments – both medical and financial – that we still feel were unnecessary (such as any fertility treatments we may or may not have undergone).

I’m also the daughter of two elderly parents who have health issues. I don’t want to go into too much detail here – I want to protect their privacy as much as possible. But I can say one of them is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and the other recently suffered a minor stroke – with minuscule cognitive impairment, thankfully.

They’re still living at home and taking care of one another. Yet their health WILL worsen and someday it will be up to my sister and me to manage their care and all that entails – including navigating their medical records.

This blog is sponsored by MyHealthMyWorld.com, an on-line health community and supplements supplier, which is taking an active role in providing personally controlled health records as part of customer care.

My background is in journalism and marketing, primarily in health related issues. I look forward to hearing from you. You can get in touch with me by posting comments or e-mailing me at jean@myhealthmyworld.com or view my online bio.

 

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