Medical Edge Newspaper Column

What You Should Know about Medication Record Keeping

January 16, 2009
Readers:
Can you name all of the medications you're taking — and their dosages? What about the results from any recent medical tests or dates of immunizations you've received?

If you're like most people, you probably can't rattle off this information without consulting your prescription bottles and paper records. You may even need to contact your doctors to get some of your past history. This can be time-consuming. It could also be life-threatening in an emergency situation.

Enter the personal health record (PHR), which many are touting as the 21st-century answer to the problem of efficiently storing, retrieving and managing information related to your health. According to current definitions, a PHR is an electronic file or record of your health information that can be stored in one place and easily accessed, usually on the Internet.

Here's more of what you should know about this form of record keeping.

Benefits of a PHR: Accessibility is considered the primary benefit of a PHR. After all, paper-based records can be lost, damaged or not available in an emergency situation. Having more control over maintaining and sharing your own medical information could also help ensure that you receive better medical care in everyday situations. This may be especially true if you see multiple doctors or have a chronic condition that requires daily medication or regular monitoring or testing.

Challenges: PHRs that are offered or maintained by a specific health care plan or provider may not allow medical information from other sources to be added to your history. This may make it difficult to keep your health records completely up to date or well organized. This could also require you to regularly add data by hand and be responsible for its accuracy.

In addition, health information you record and store yourself my not be as secure as the data from a health care system, which is protected under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

If you're interested in starting a PHR, contact your primary health care provider or your health plan to see if one is already available to you online. If you don't have access to a PHR, or want to investigate other models, ask your health care providers if your medical records are available and accessible electronically, or request a paper copy.

More information about PHRs is available from the Department of Health and Human Services.