Article- A PHR is for Life

Imagine being an infant today with proactive parents who create for you your own personal health record (PHR). Your PHR will include (name the things), and, as you grow, will include the dates of your inoculations, the times you sprained your wrist, broke a thumb, came down with chicken pox, had your tonsils removed, lost your first tooth, got braces and any and all of the medical benchmarks and events of your youth.

As you age, you take on the responsibility of updating your PHR and then, one day, in your mid-40s, you come down with what appears to be  shingles. You’ve moved across country by this time and as your doctor asks if you’ve ever had chicken pox (shingles can appear in adults who  had chicken pox when a child), you tell him you don’t know – you certainly don’t remember ever having them. But you want to be sure and instead of calling your mother – you just check your online PHR and see, yes, you came down with the chicken pox when you were 6.

Such a scenario is more than possible for today’s infants. In fact, anyone can create an online personal health record now and have access to a lifetime of treatments, diagnosis, illnesses and other medical information instantly.

A personal health record can be as simple as a folder in which you keep all papers and notes. Yet  technology today allows us to create a comprehensive health record online, accessible any time anywhere.

Several organizations already provide free online PHRs we can create at no charge, such as iHealthRecord.org

 (The American Health Information Health Management Association offers you a link where you can search for both free and subscription options http://www.myphr.com/resources/phr_search.asp.)

A PHR’s Possibilities

Aside from answering the chicken pox conundrum described above, an online PHR:

• Reminds you that you had your appendectomy removed when you were 25, not 27
• Records your progress as you embark on a stop-smoking campaign
• Lists the vitamins and other health supplements you’re taking
• Helps you see  which healthy eating strategies and exercise programs help you lose weight at a healthy pace
• Compare your childrens’ immunization schedules
• Look for patterns in data – do certain foods give you gas? Are you getting fewer colds since you started a certain vitamin regimen?
• Monitor your health care costs

Do you see a pattern emerging? What’s more, a PHR allows you to give a spouse, parent or trusted friend the password to your online record, thus giving them access to vital information should you be unable to access the record yourself in case of emergency:

• You’re in a car accident far from home.
• Your elderly parents  – who live hundreds of miles away – have given you access to their PHR and so you’re able to monitor their care. As they get even older (perhaps one of them displays signs of dementia) you can add to the PHR for them when you visit and attend a doctor’s appointment or two.
• You’ve left your hometown due to a natural disaster (Hurricane Katrina, as an example). So has your physician. Now a resident of another state, you can bring your PHR to your new doctor, thus saving much time and tedium as she gets to know your medical history.