This article is from the website appscout.com 

We at MediConnect, think this cutting edge technology, and others like it- are the wave of the future. 

Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

The day where you can access your own medical records—or transfer them to a health professional—right from your cell phone is fast approaching. Recently, the U.S military signed a deal with AllOne Mobile, a health information management application by AllOne Health, to link Wounded Warriors recuperating at home with their case managers and unit support staff, according to TMCNet.

The linkup provides secure, two-day communication, and lets injured service members reach case managers and other military personnel who will monitor soldiers through personalized encrypted messages provided by AllOne, according to the report. Over time, AllOne Health aims to give regular employees and employers more control of their health records, along with access to tools and services for navigating health insurance plans. Currently they’re working with Microsoft on the company’s HealthVault service, among other projects.

By James Thalman

Deseret News

Published: Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009 12:17 a.m. MST

Ready or not, one day soon there will be another pandemic. Like it or not, health-care system reform is really going to happen this time. Believe it or not, the one person who is gaining a new appreciation for President George W. Bush is President Barack Obama.

Those were among several assertions made to the Deseret News editorial board Monday by Michael O. Leavitt, former Utah governor, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and, most recently, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Asked to assess the legacy of Bush, Leavitt said being critical is not his place as a Cabinet member nor is it his desire as a friend. The only things that can be said for certain is that it’s too soon to say.

During a recent visit to the Oval Office, Leavitt recalled, Bush pointed to the portrait of George Washington and said if historians are still arguing the legacy of the first president, arguing over the legacy of the 43rd is a given.

Leavitt, who said he fully shares in the nationwide hope for the new president, said he believes Iraq and Afghanistan “have a very good chance of ending up with functioning democratic governments. Those are very important world-changing results.”

Seeing the presidency up close also gave Leavitt a new perspective on how the country views the position — “as both an object for the manifestation of our hopes and our fears.” The Bush administration didn’t do things perfectly, “but no administration does.” He said circumstances, such as Hurricane Katrina, never allowed the president an opportunity to rally around optimism.

“There was never a time when we all set aside our divisions and moved forward,” he said.

Leavitt also got an up-close perspective of the world outside Washington, from seven weeks overseeing emergency medical services for Katrina victims, to visits to China to establish FDA standards for food and products manufactured there, to the efforts of the administration to contain the AIDS epidemic in Africa. The latter, he said, is one of Bush’s mostly unsung and significant achievements in improving the public health.

The position also gave him a new vantage point on health care, particularly the need for reforming it.

He envisions a time when patients can look up the cost, outcome and quality of medications, procedures and doctors from a home computer.

He also has a clear idea of what health-care reform is and likes to describe it by what it is not: the 47 million Americans who don’t have medical insurance. He calls that “an administrative problem that gets all the attention but one we can fix.”

One thing that must change is spending 16.5 percent of the gross national product on health care, “which rewards based on procedures, successful or not, and for treating sickness rather than keeping people well.”

The system is a network of independent “silos” that is very specialized and very expensive, but not very good compared to countries that spend a fraction of their national product on medicine.

“The solution isn’t to continue to keep doing what we did in the past,” he said. “The role of government needs to be worked out. Is it to own the system or organize the system?”

Leavitt said he foresees three possible outcomes for making comprehensive changes: incremental steps with expansions of health-care insurance for children and by expanding Medicare for seniors, the Big Bang change with details to be worked out later, the Big Bang carefully done.

“Health care is a big part of the stimulus — $100 billion — and a lot of it is for improving health care information technology, which is wonderful,” he said. “The big question is if this will be a pay-as-you-go effort. If they stick to a pay/go principle, the changes are more likely to be incremental.”

Health care is absolutely going to be changed, he said, noting that issue is finally ripe in the public’s mind, a factor that destined previous efforts to little more than nice tries.

He is also sure that a pandemic is a certainty, noting the three in the 20th century and the 10 the past 300 years. He pointed to his efforts to make the public aware of the avian flu threat, which he said were bolstered substantially by being mentioned on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” three nights running in 2002. He said there have been improvements in public health and in scientific preparedness, and the U.S. vaccine industry has been retooled under his watch.

I found this article in the Wall Street Journal and I thought it was interesting.

Pfizer Project Looks at Side Effects

Headlines For the Week of Jan 6-14, 2009:

Here are links to the current news in life, legal and healthcare.  If you find stories that you think should be included please email me at epeterson@mediconnect.net, or leave a comment on the blog. If you would like to receive this as an RSS Feed, click on the “subscribe link” at the top of this page.

Thanks.

 
01/14/09 Newsinferno.com: Internal Emails Confirm Glaxo Avandia Cover-Up

01/14/09 WSJ.com: Apple CEO Jobs to take a Medical Leave of Absence

01/14/09 Newsinferno.com: Salmonella Outbreak tied to 3 Deaths

01/14/09 Newsinferno.com: One Million Stork Craft Cribs Recalled 

01/14/09 Newsinferno.com: Brain Shrinkage Seen with Hormone Replacement Therapy.

01/13/09 Newsinferno.com: UnitedHealth Group to Pay $50 Million to Settle Claims it Over Charged Millions

01/12/09 Reuters.com: U.S. Advisers back 1st drug from DNA- Altered Animals

01/12/09Cnn.com: Obama’s Big Idea: Digital Health Records

01/09/09 Newsinferno.com: Quest Diagnostic Testing Errors Reported

01/08/09 Newsinferno.com: CDC: Poor Infection Control Put Patients at Risk for Hepatitis B,C

01/06/09 Newsinferno.com: Medtronic Infuse Bone Graft to be Named in Another Lawsuit

01/06/09 Abcnews.com: Third-Hand Smoke—the Dust Finally Settles

People seem to talk about healthcare now days like they talk about food. What do you want? How much do you want, and do you want fries with that?

True healthcare is a not a privilege but something every human being should have. However, once you decide everyone deserves healthcare, the real question is how much care do they get?
Dr. Rich offers a summary of this dilemma in “The Covert Rationing Blog,” when he says:

Exactly how much healthcare are you entitled to if you have a right to healthcare?  Do you have a right to certain specified healthcare services, to a certain dollar amount of healthcare per year or per lifetime, to whatever healthcare it takes to achieve perfect health, or to some other limit or non-limit?
The question of limits (whether we should have them or not, and what should they be) has been a central theme of this blog and of Dr Rich’s book.  To reiterate the fundamental problem: 1) In America we believe that it is wrong to limit healthcare in any way, that everyone is entitled to the very best healthcare, that any bit of healthcare that offers even a small potential of benefit should be provided, and that death itself is merely a manifestation of insufficient research (or actionable incompetence, or systematic discrimination against the unwealthy, or corporate greed).  2) But against that closely held belief, we must balance the unremitting law of economics which tells us that there is simply not enough money in the known universe to buy all the healthcare that might potentially offer some small amount of benefit to every person.  Healthcare spending has to be limited, or it will become a fiscal black hole.

Once healthcare becomes a right, those presumably 47 million Americans will suddenly have claim to “equal access” healthcare. What does that mean anyway? How will that financial stress affect Americans wallets? Let me guess, we will inevitably redefine the limits of what we expect from our healthcare system.

What do you think?
Oh and do you want fries with that?

What are the chances that your identity could be stolen? ChoicePoint Data Solutions proved that possibility a few years ago; when tens of thousands of American’s personal information was stolen.
But what are the chances your medical records could be stolen?

Well the University of Utah Hospital proved that possibility a few months ago, when a Perpetual Storage courier picked up tapes containing medical billing files, and instead of transporting them to the storage facility, he drove home and parked his car.  His car was broken into sometime during the night and the tapes were gone. (See University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics Stolen Backup tape contained 2.2 million billing records.)

What are the chances?

Well lucky for the 2.2 million patients who visited the hospital over the past 16 years, the tapes were found, and didn’t appear to be accessed.  (See Great News: University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics Billing Records Recovered)

But what is the message here?  What if you were one of those patients, and your files had been accessed. What if it wasn’t just billing information but was your actual medical records?  Someone could erase your medical history, or delete medicines you’re taking or worse-those you’re allergic to.  What if they went in and played around with vital health information, like: changing surgeries and the dates you had them, or switching your doctors, not to mention putting procedures down that you have never had done?

One more reason to have a personal copy of your medical record.

The implications are huge, and if it can happen to Choicepoint and to the University of Utah Hospital, who’s to say it won’t happen again and that it won’t be your records?

What are the chances? Is playing Russian roulette with your records a chance worth taking?

There are a lot of things in life that we would go back too… the fourth grade play,  the senior prom, the winning touchdown in the “big game,” or even graduation. But there are also a lot of things that we wouldn’t go back too… not because we don’t want to…but because through experience we now know better.  David Kibbe understands this.

After spending several years leading a team of the American Academy of Family Physicians, (AAFP) and its members to promote the adoption of electronical medical records (EMR), he and the many doctors who followed him…can’t go back.

“Between 2003 and 2007, the percentage of the AAFP’s active membership of 60,000 doctors who utilize an EMR from a commercial vendor in their practices jumped from about 10 percent to almost 50 percent. The overwhelming majority of the doctors in these practices consider this a good thing, and would never go back to paper systems,” said Kibbe in his talk “Confessions of a Physician EMR Champion.”

Not only did the doctors learn first hand about the unparalleled value of using an EMR; it opened their eyes to an even deeper problem.  The breakdown of communication required to assist patients and doctors to collaborate and make better decisions together.

“What I once thought was the end game, however, is really only the starting line… I am now recommending to physicians, their office managers, and their business partners that their health IT deployments should no longer be vendor-driven, nor should they be limited to what works best inside the individual practice. Instead, their health IT should be aligned with a business and clinical re-organization strategy that places a much higher value than heretofore on team-based care and management programs involving health data exchange… I’m encouraging patient portals, community health data exchanges, shared clinical data collection, and intelligent online tools.” said Kibbe.

Is Kibbe right? Are EMR’s only the beginning of a health care system that needs to change to get the patient and doctor on the same page?

One thing we do know is that Kibbe and his colleagues would never go back to paper records.

Flashlight…Check.
Canned Food…Check.
Water…Check.

How prepared are you for an emergency?  Do you think you have everything you might need to keep you and your family safe?  From flashlights and blankets, to water and canned food, are you ready for any kind of emergency, physical or financial? Do you really have the necessary things you would need in a time of urgency?

Perhaps you don’t.  Have you thought about having an updated copy of your personal health information?
One of the biggest lessons we learned from Hurricane Katrina was that thousands of people were not only left without their homes, but without their life sustaining medications. Adding to the over-arching problem, was the fact that many of these people didn’t know what drugs they were taking, or why they were taking them. 

With medical offices, and pharmacies wiped out from the storm, access to this valuable information was impossible. Hundreds of people suffered greatly, due to delays in diagnoses and treatment of  patients because they didn’t have their medical records. If they’d had a list of their medications and health providers, it would have made a world of difference.

Today it’s the patient’s responsibility to be informed and educated on their medical history.  It is vital for patients to have at least a basic updated medical history in a safe place.

Times are changing and having food storage isn’t enough.  It’s time to be prepared on all levels.
Here is some essential information to include in your personal health information:

• Your full name and gender
• Date of birth
• Your address and phone number (home, work, cell)
• Health Insurance Information
• Emergency Contact
• Name and number of your primary care health provider /pharmacy
• Name and number of your dentist
• All known allergies (list reactions that accompany the allergies)
• All medications and over the counter drugs you take (include dosage and frequency)
• Dates of all vaccinations
• All current medical diagnoses
• History of symptoms such as, chest pain, shortness of breath, hypo/hyperglycemia etc.
• All surgeries and dates
• Any broken bones and dates
• Treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, clinical trials, electric shock etc.
• Do you smoke? Have you smoked in the past? How much?
• Do you consume alcohol? (How much and how often?)
• Do you use street drugs? (What and when?)

Also list your risk of disease due to family history, for certain diseases such as: Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, arthritis, mental illness and neuromuscular diseases.

So add medical records to your list.
Flashlight…Check.
Canned Food…Check.
Water…Check.
Personal Health Records…Check.

Remember the old phrase, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Or can it? Applying for life insurance can be more difficult and pricey than in years past.  Insurers are now scrutinizing potential client’s medical records more than before, which means if there are mistakes in your medical records it could hit you where it hurts-your wallet.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as 98,000 people die each year in hospitals from medical errors. If these errors are turning up in hospitals, you can bet they are turning up in medical records, which can result in being denied life insurance or at least paying higher insurance premiums.

 “You need to make sure you know what’s in your medical records and correct any errors before you apply for insurance,” says Carolyn McClanahan a certified financial planner and former medical doctor.

Medical mistakes happen all the time; they can arise from mistyped diagnosis codes or transcription errors, even inaccurate diagnosis. “Part of the problem is that the U.S. healthcare system relies mainly on paper records, which makes it harder…spot errors.” says Joy Pritts, research associate professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute.

By having your own medical records, in an electronic format, you will be aware of any errors that need to be corrected. This is a huge dividend when it comes to applying for insurance and securing the lowest premium possible.

After all it’s your health shouldn’t you own it?

    Have you ever wondered how safe your medical records really are?  Actually, the first question you should ask yourself is, are they truly YOUR medical records?  Who owns them?
    Two medical centers in Martinsville, VA suddenly closed in September, due to “economic reasons.” (See: Medical Center Closings highlight patient needs to keep copy of medical records.)
  However, what about those patient’s medical records?  Don’t they have a right to get what is rightfully theirs?
Technically the medical records belong to the provider; you can request copies but, you are not the owner of your medical records.
    “It’s not a bad idea for patients to get in the habit of maybe every couple years requesting updated medical records from their physician.  Just so they have it for their personal records in case the patient moves or the doctor moves,” said Jennifer Deschenes, Deputy Executive Director for the Virginia Board of Medicine.  If this can happen to the people of Martinsville, VA what is stopping it from happening to you?
     MediConnect can help.  MediConnect Global Inc. retrieves your personal medical records from your providers and allows you to access them online in a secure electronically, digitized format.  Just click on the MediConnect website at www.mediconnect.net to start retrieving your medical records today.
Because you shouldn’t have to worry about what happens to your health history.