Alex Bettencourt - May 6, 2011
The implementation of personal health records (PHRs) is gaining traction every day, and we’re proud to see it become especially popular in the San Francisco bay area. The Northern California Summit on Children and Youth was recently held in Richmond, California and the hottest topic of discussion was personal health records. When we heard this, it was music to our ears.
Why were personal health records such an important topic at this summit? Because the Health Shack Project and the Wind Youth Services, stole the show with the demonstration of their successful PHR initiatives among unprivileged youth in Northern California. (more…)
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Kwame Ahene - December 1, 2010
Pam Swingley with her father and siblings.
Our founder, Pam Swingley, started RememberItNow! because her father was forgetting to take his medications and she had no insight into his health care. Many Americans over fifty share the same experience of trying to help their parents remain independent and healthy.
USA Today features a similar story about Helen, an active and independent 86 year-old whose energy levels lessened over a period of time, to the point where she began to sleep her days away. Everyone around Helen including her daughter Michelle, her primary caregiver, and her doctors had no clue what was happening to her.
Similar to a lot of individuals in their old age, Helen was afflicted with “multiple medical issues” including congestive health failure, gout, and glaucoma. In 2009, her glaucoma caused her to lose nearly all her sight in one eye due to increasing pressure and was put on Diamox to alleviate her symptoms. (more…)
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Deborah Leader, RN, BSN, PH - November 11, 2010
Is Your PHR Personal Enough?
With the continued advancement of software, managing your personal health record has never been easier; and it’s never been more personal. Now, at the click of a mouse you can let your fingers do the walking without ever leaving your home. (more…)
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Kwame Ahene - November 8, 2010
In a recent Chilmark research article, we are introduced to the term Collaborative Health Records (CHRs). While sweet and encompassing in name, the implications of this novel health recording system have the capability of changing the contours of how we perceive all electronic health information systems.
As mentioned in the article, divisions between patient centric and hospital centric health records can create a potential problem of hindering care rather than promoting it. CHRs are defined as a collaborative effort that seamlessly link EHRs and PHRs, which are geared towards the medical community and patients respectively.
Information liquidity remains to be a pertinent issue and it seems as though the development of the “Collaborative Health Record” can bring light to the situation. Cerner’s Health 2.0 demonstration of Cerner Health and Cerner Active presents a comparable model of how CHRs may work in the future. Within their model, information is seamlessly shared between the two applications. Even with increased liquidity, many questions can be asked of its viability.
On another note, current market fluxes like Google’s tango with their PHR and Epic’s release of their MyChart iPhone app have been steamrolling the competition in EHR installations. Meanwhile, Verizon and Orange Telecom have been providing larger Health Information Exchange (HIE) infrastructures to push adaptation towards to CHRs from EHRs and PHRs too.
Until then, I pose this question: What are the largest barriers you see blocking full adoption of CHRs?
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Alex Bettencourt - October 27, 2010
When you first visit a new health care professional, some common questions they ask you include:
“Do you have any history of diabetes or high blood pressure in your family?”
“When was your last immunization and what were the dates?”
“Are you on any medications, and if so what are the current names of your medications?”
How many of us can answer all of these questions at the top of our head? Not many. It’s even harder when you have a pounding headache, high fever, and feel completely fatigued from the flu. I don’t know how the nurse understood my mumbling as she scribbled down my answers on her clipboard. (more…)
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Pamela Swingley - October 1, 2010
It’s often very true, that timing is everything. After a rocky history, the timing seems to be right for personal health records. The news has been filled with health technology this week, all leading up to a record Health 2.0 conference.
Jim Hansen, Vice President & Executive Director, Dossia Consortium identifies seven converging trends that create both a powerful catalyst and disruptive environment for person-centric health records and their associated applications:
- Growing recognition by physicians of the value of patient-sourced information (e.g., preferences, drug side-affect feedback, environmental factors) within the care decision-making process,
- Increasing consumer/patient financial skin in the game,
- Increasing patient-physician communications and joint outcome accountability,
- Movement to care models (e.g. medical home, accountable care organizations) and associated payment reform approaches that cannot reach their outcome and financial potential without leveraging a holistic 360 degree view of a patient’s data,
- Changing consumer/patient perspectives on health information privacy, sharing and associated control,
- Impending rapid growth of automatic gathering and remote monitoring of consumer/patient-sourced biometric and other data (both chronic disease and wellness related), and
- The exploding interest in mobile applications by both consumer/patients and caregivers that can only reach their true interactive potential by leveraging an integrated, comprehensive, person-centric health data view.
Some days it feels just like we are on an ever accelerating treadmill.
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Alex Bettencourt - August 30, 2010
Having a personal health record (PHR) allows you to take control of your health and with so many options available today, we have more power than ever at our fingertips. However, all these choices can be overwhelming. It’s important to assess your needs in order to determine the qualifications your PHR must meet. (more…)
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Alex Bettencourt - June 11, 2010
If you’re a little reluctant about starting a Personal Health Record, don’t let these rumors fool you. A personal health record could save your life, so it’s important to do your research before you change your mind about not creating one.
Let’s examine some of these rumors more thoroughly:
1. “Your doctor is not allowed to share your health care information with family members.”
This is false and your physician actually is allowed to share relevant health information with your family members. Under The HIPPA Privacy Rule your health care provider is permitted to to share information directly pertinent to the involvement of a spouse, family member, or another contact you have identified with approval (usually this is another caregiver or someone else helping pay for your healthcare). (more…)
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Pamela Swingley - March 29, 2010
PHRs, EHRs and Social Media – Where are We Headed?
Source: eHealth
Two coincidental articles were published today. First, in iHealthBeat, John Moore and Matthew Holt talk about why ”Consumers Not Ready for Do-It-Yourself PHRs.” In response to the decision by Revolution Health to discontinue their PHR, the experts comment that “the direct-to-consumer market for PHRs just doesn’t work.” But they say that…
Patients demand health records. Employers can help.
Source: Dossia Blog
by: Collin Evans, Dossia CEO A recent CNN.com article (http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/14/medical.records) entitled “Patients demand: ‘Give us our damned data’” highlights the barriers that many patients must overcome in order to get access to their own medical records. The Health Information Privacy and Portability Act (HIPAA) gives patients t…
Feature: The Power and Potential of Personal Health Records
Source: Project HealthDesign Blog
The Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has introduced a research and policy overview of personal health records (PHRs) and related issues. The feature traces the history and development of PHRs and discusses their role within the larger…
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