On Saturday, I wrote about how having a personal health record for my daughter would have made just one small aspect of our pending move across the country easier as my husband worked to get our daughter’s inoculations up to date:

….had we had an online PHR for our daughter, and had that PHR been accessible to both our HMO and the new pediatrician, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Once we’d given permission for the new doctor to look at our daughter’s records, she could have done so – possibly as soon as that very day. The primary phrase above is "had that PHR been accessible to both our HMO and the new pediatrician…" Having an online personal health record would have done us no good if our new pediatrician didn’t look at our PHR as she would a traditional medical record. That is, if she knew the PHR was our creation and the information in it was NOT placed there by our HMO’s physician, it might not be "legit" in her eyes and she could still have insisted on seeing the "real" medical record sent via the U.S. Postal Service from our current HMO.So what’s the solution? An online PHR created by me or by my physician, with access available to both of us and where entries we each make are identified to each of our selves. My daughter’s physician(s) and I would update the PHR throughout the course of my daughter’s life, noting any treatments, diagnoses, surgeries and other care she receives. If I were a physician, perhaps I’d take a patient’s own PHR more seriously if I could tell which parts of it were put there by another doctor and which were written by someone else — a concerned parent, spouse or the patient herself. I’m new to the world of personal health records, so I don’t know how far along such PHRs or interactive online medical records might be. I’m going to research this topic more – after all, such an online document/tool could revolutionize health care as we know it. Instead of coming to a physician’s office and sitting passively by as he or she reads my records and makes notes, we could instead both read my record on a laptop or other computer portal as we discuss past and future treatment options.