Imagine you are on a routine business trip to a foreign country. You collapse after your dinner at a fancy sea food restaurant. On arrival to the hospital, under the current fragmented health care system, retrieving your medical record is difficult, answers to questions whether you are allergic to any seafood or your previous medication history or even your primary physician contact details are difficult to obtain. You will be treated as any other emergency arrived patient. On discharge from the hospital you will carry no more than a paper based record of your medical history.

What are the probabilities of this episode recurring? And how can you make a note that you may be allergic to certain kind of sea food? Can you carry this vital medical information with you always? To answer these questions we have to be aware that information technologies are not
widely adopted in health care industry. Various surveys indicate that it is around 5-10%, unlike in other industries like financial or even local fast food restaurant which utilizes around 40% of Information technology resources. The resulting huge gap has a increased the number of medical errors, which effects around 100,000 patients annually in US as was shown in the landmark study by Institute of Medicine in 1999.

Comparing to the aviation industry, it is akin to a small mid sized aircraft crashing down every day. The lacuna in rapid IT adoption in health care industry up until now has resulted in upsurge in awarness relating to widespread utilization of electronic medical records. Optimum utilization of innovative medical technologies like digital personal health record can help in reducing the impact of medical related errors to a certain extent.

What are Digital Personal Health Records? A storage device using a standard storage drive that can store health care information about an entire individual's lifetime .This portable device has individual emergency information stored in them; the health information can be rapidly accessed from the storage device using any standard or portable computer any time, anywhere effortlessly.

The caveat- It is of importance to note that the health information should be stored in a secure environment preferably in an encrypted storage drive. An optimal personal health record should contain not only emergency data of individual but also relevant demographic information in addition to all the medical and surgical history. The contents of the portable health record should include vital information about current medications, allergy history and also important medical conditions or surgical procedures along with immunizations records.

One such example of a localized personal health care record manager is MedicDrive(TM).MedicDrive offers a user friendly method to record and store your personal and your family health information in a portable encrypted format. Medic Drive is backed by scientific research study and also has won several awards for its innovative technology. MedicDrive is the world’s first health application program built on Constructive Medicine platform which is enabling use of technologies for life.

If individuals carry portable personal record with them always,physicians on their arrival to hospital in case of any emergencies can rapidly establish the patient's medical antecedents. On their departure from the hospital they can carry their updated medical treatment history all the time, everywhere. This will enable an individual to maintain a record of their health information in illness. Physicians can deliver better optimized care to patients who have their complete health records.

About the Author:

Ms.Catherine Collins has spent nearly a decade in writing about health care topics. She has published her works in several leading publications in mainstream media. More information on MedicDrive can be obtained from their website www.MedicDrive.org

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