Let’s say you have just moved across country with your family. Let’s say you’re moving in to your new home and, while performing some minor repair on your house, you cut your thumb badly with a small saw.

So you head to the emergency room or urgent care center. You don’t have your medical records with you – the last thought in your head as blood spurts from your thumb was to hunt down the medical records still packed away in a box in the garage – but your spouse isn’t worried, for she has the “card.”……..

Read Jean’s full article located at articles at MyHealthMyWorld (link opens a new window).

I’ve received a few e-mails — labeled "an important private message" — from IHealthRecord.com ever since I registered with the service to build an online personal health record. I’ve received three messages from Medem, IHealthRecord.com’s parent company, messages I signed up to receive when I enrolled in the company’s educational programs. I chose to receive information on cholesterol.

I liken these messages to "notes from my doc," in that all three of the messages I’ve received have basically told me I’m at risk for heart disease (if I don’t already have it, what with the high cholesterol and all) and then it gives me links to online tools to help me lower it. I’ve received three messages so far: "Understanding Cholesterol," "Cholesterol and Lifestyle" and "Cholesterol and Your Diet."

The last one, on diet, talks to me in great detail, but in very easy-to-understand language, about eating more fruits and vegetables, eating lean cuts of meat, staying away from fatty dairy products, etc. It tells me I need to convert to a "Therapeutic Lifestyle Change (TLC)" diet.

All well and good.

But then it sends me links to online tools that tell me how much of these fatty foods I can eat. After filling out my age, height/weight and activity level, the calculating tool tells me how many calories I should eat, how many grams of saturated fat I should limit myself to each day as well as my total daily fat gram allowance.

Nifty!

Another link asks me about my shopping habits: Do I do the shopping in my household, yes or no? (My real answer: Only when my husband is sick in bed with the plague, that is how much I hate to grocery shop.) Do I go with a list, yes or no? (Real answer: Of course! A list makes the awful experience go faster. See first answer, above). Do I shop according to a) nutrition b) taste or c) convenience? (Answer: Convenience is my mantra because I Hate. To. Cook. To me, the only reaseon we have a kitchen is for the resale value of our house.

So I click on a link to a "TLC Diet Daily Food Guide," one that tells me in detail how much of everything good and wholesome and how little of everything bad and loathsome I should eat. A list. A wonderful list. List, how I do love thee.? List, thou art my savior when I walk through the valley and the shadows of the Albertson’s food aisles.

Yet, alas and alack, the list does not allow for much convenience food. No, it lists foods that must be peeled. Foods that must be chopped. Foods that require, how shall I say it? Ah, yes, here’s the word — foods that require work. Work that must be done in a kitchen. Work that will take several minutes to do until I can put food to mouth. Time that I’d rather spend painting the walls of the attic or digging up a stree stump in the back yard, that’s how much I hate cooking.

Healthy Choice Frozen Dinners, take me away!!!!

I’ve been asked to put a request out here. MyHealthMyWorld.com, my sponsor, is thinking of getting others who feel it important to take charge of their health care and their medical records – to start blogging about their own experiences.

To put it in words better than I wrote above, let me quote Geoff Purdom, Ph.D, one of the board members of the MyHealthMyWorld co-operative. He likens this idea to creating a "community of health diaries – writers sharing their experience for the common good."

The different blogs – provided free by MyHealthMyWorld.com and set up for you in case you have no experience blogging – would talk about each person’s specific situation. For example, someone may write about dealing with the health care system while caring for a child with ADD. Another could blog about his diabetes treatment and how it affects his lifestyle. Another could write about her progress as she recovers from kidney surgery or chemotherapy. Another could post regularly about his challenge to stop smoking and lose 20 pounds at the same time.

Actually, just about anything could be written about because we all have health issues. Even if we don’t have HEALTH ISSUES, we still deal with our health each and every day on some level, even if it’s just a promise to ourselves that we’ll eat more fruits and vegetables, or exercise three times a week or take that tap dancing class we’ve been wanting to….. However the most likely value is to people who would like to either create a record for themselves to help their own convalescence or if you think you would like to share your experience of dealing with a chronic oor other health issue to help others.

If you’d like to be a part of this self-help community, if you have ideas about how you think this community should be run, please contact Geoff at myblog@myhealthmyworld.com. It is free and easy to setup.

So I was Google-ing some other blogs to see if anyone else writes about personal health records and I came across this one by Aniruddha Malpani, MD, an IVF specialist who happens to practice in India. He’s described on the blog – where he’s actually a guest blogger; the blog where this post is located is not his – as an “ardent patient advocate.”

That’s putting it mildly.

Dr. Malpani believes patients should be the one to own and control who has access to their medical records. Period.

What’s more, he’s passionate that patients should own and control their medical records via interactive (or online) personal health records.

He writes:

The reason the healthcare system today is sick is because it is so doctor-centric. The best way to heal the system is by putting patients at the center of it; and the most efficient way of doing this is by allowing patients to own their PHR - personal health records. The web allows us to provide everyone with a free PHR; and this is a major business opportunity, as healthcare undergoes a dramatic change over the next few years. PHRs are likely to be a major catalyst , because they will allow patients more control over the healthcare they receive. Patients are the largest untapped healthcare resource and armed with a PHR, they won’t feel so powerless any more !

Can you hear my heartbeat pick up its pace? I’m falling for this guy. He continues.

For example, let’s see how much better a visit to your doctor could be if you had an online PHR.

One day before your appointment, you receive an automatic email reminder. You review your personal health records on the internet, and take a printout which summarizes your past medical history and your medications. An intelligent program on the site asks you questions related to your headaches, which you can review and answer. It also guides you about what questions you need to ask your doctor, and you can print these out to take with you to your doctor. It also provides you with more information about headaches and self-management options.

I’m going to the get the vapors in a minute! Speak to me the words I long to hear, Dr. Malpani!

And so he does:

…. [I}deally the health record should be the patient’s story – from the patient’s point of view ! A patient-owned health record (which includes the patient’s personal views and social background as well) can enable a true partnership and collaboration between patient and doctor.  

I tell you, I’m swooning:

How can we get enough patients to keep a PHR? We need to provide them clever incentives to do so ! We can use either a top-down approach ( for example, health insurance plans can require their subscribers to keep PHRs ; and provide a discount for those who do so faithfully ); or a bottom-up approach – by creating communities of empowered patients.

There’s a lot more to this post, a lot that makes a ton of sense. I hope he’s sent this letter to ’s legislators. To CEOs of HMOs. To the deans at Harvard and Stanford medical schools, et al.

There’s a , a lot that makes a ton of sense. I hope he’s sent this letter to ’s legislators. To CEOs of HMOs. To the deans at Harvard and Stanford medical schools, et al.

 Sending you tons of blog love, Dr. Malpani. Ooodles of love.

Kisses,
Jean

There’s a , a lot that makes a ton of sense. I hope he’s sent this letter to ’s legislators. To CEOs of HMOs. To the deans at Harvard and Stanford medical schools, et al.

There’s a , a lot that makes a ton of sense. I hope he’s sent this letter to ’s legislators. To CEOs of HMOs. To the deans at Harvard and Stanford medical schools, et al.

I wrote recently about creating a personal health record (PHR) for my parents. My plan is to gather information – the names, addresses and numbers of their health care providers, the medications they now take, the treatments they’re undergoing and why – and place them in an online PHR. Since I’m using a free online PHR service provided by ihealthrecord.com for myself, I’ll create one for both parents there, as well.

The building of my own online personal health record continues.

Christmas IS coming. As I write this, it’s late September and I’m telling myself I should start a list of ideas for Christmas gifts for my family and friends.

Meanwhile, my parents are in their late 70s, their health is declining and my sister and I have stepped up our visits and questions and overall concern for them. We’re also getting more involved in their care and, as they tell me of their numerous visits to doctors and clinics (“Our new hobby,” my mother quips), I’ve come to the decision I need to get all the names of all their care providers, all the drugs they are taking and their dosing schedule. In other words, I should start a Personal Health Record for both of them.

Each time they visit a doctor, I can update the online PHR I create for them. I can then keep this for myself, of course, but I could also print it out regularly and mail it to my sister and to them. That way, everyone will be up to date. Everyone will know the last time my mother went to her dermatologist, my father’s last dental check up and his visits to his neurologist. And it will be in a form neat and tidy, legible and organized.

This truly would be a great gift for all of us. Yes, it’s not shiny nor is it cuddly. It doesn’t tell time, play a favorite movie on DVD or keep feet warm at night in slippers made of fleece.

But it would give all of us peace of mind. My parents live near San Diego, California . My sister lives in Arizona and while I now live two hours away from my parents via a crowded freeway, my husband and I are moving to Pennsylvania soon. It’s already hard to keep track of all their appointments and physicians, not to mention their drug therapies.

While I could print out a copy for my parents – neither of them is computer-savvy – I could give my sister access to the online personal health record I create and update. She also could update information. When my sister and I chat on the phone, we could access the records online as we speak to look them over and discuss as needed.

I’m going to start doing this very soon – creating personal health records for my mother and father – and will post here as I do so to let you know of the challenges and opportunities inherent in creating PHRs for elderly family members.

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.

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.

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:

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.