Would your patients like their own records?
November 1, 1999 3 minutes read
Would your patients like their own records?
Alabama physician finds they do
Do your patients want to take charge of their medical records? Ira Denton, MD, thinks so.
When he decided to retire from practice, the Huntsville, AL, neurosurgeon offered to give his patients their medical records on a floppy disk. He asked a total of 1,119 patients if they wanted their records electronically to keep on their home computer. In a short time, almost 400 people said "yes."
"They were scattered across North Alabama in small towns. This shows a very widespread interest in computers in areas where you might not expect them to be," Denton says.
He had been keeping records electronically for 10 years and knew that a tremendous amount of information on his patients could easily be transferred to a floppy disk. In the early 1990s, he and his wife, Judith, developed and marketed a software system that stored, manipulated, and reported patients’ medical records for physician offices. His electronic medical record system was purchased by Electronic Healthcare System in Birmingham.
"The ultimate customer is the patient. We decided to change the paradigm and make it work for patients," Denton says.
Some patients had been showing up in his office with spreadsheets on which they had been keeping their own records, he says. "In the past, the only people who weren’t part of the health care team were the patients. This puts them in charge of knowing their medical history and physical condition and helps them onto their own health care team."
His system, the Personal Health Record, marketed by CapMed Corporation in Huntsville, is an easy-to-use software program that allows patients to maintain their personal health records on their personal computer. "Anything that goes in the electronic record can be mapped out and put into a database for the patient to have on his electronic record. Patients can take their records from office to office and eliminate the need for copying and transferring paper records," he says.
Giving the electronic records to the patients can ultimately save money because all the tests, reports, and patient history are available in one source, Denton asserts.
"It’s not unusual for someone in the baby boom generation to have three or four doctors, and the left hand sometimes doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. With an electronic medical record, the physician can look at everything that is happening with the patient," he says.
Patients don’t always report accurately on the medications they are taking or the treatments they have received, Denton says. Having the records on the electronic database gives the physician access to everything that has been done for the patient, and the ability to call up the data by condition.
"When they look back, they can look at a particular condition and see everything that has been done for that condition, and only that condition," he says.
Electronic medical records can be configured so emergency room personnel have access to some critical information but not the full records without a password, Denton says.
Sharing your office records with patients can help build trust and a good relationship between doctor and patient, he says.
"In these days of managed care, patients and physicians alike are frustrated by the system. A lot can be gained even as time spent with the patients and eye contact is shorter. Even if you don’t recognize it immediately, it’s one of those things you’ll be really glad you did. It brings the patient into the show," he adds.
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