Online Medical Records

May 23, 2010

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May 23, 2010

shutterstock_50712442 When you live full-time in an RV, like we do, everything you own is with you, including any medical records. What happens if you visit a Doctor in Arizona, and lose the written report? Your medical records will be incomplete, and your regular Doctor in Florida won’t know anything about it. We try to get a printed report any time we visit a Doctor anywhere. But, paperwork is a problem in our small home, even though we took out the couch to add filing drawers.

Don’t Count on your Doctor to Maintain your Records

We just spent the entire winter season in our old hometown of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and considered it a luxury to be able to visit the same Doctors’ office that we did in years passed. When we returned for a followup visit, we found the doors closed, the phone disconnected and NO information. A new doctor needed some old information and I couldn’t give it to her.

Take a Picture

Without those historical records, I had to go get a new Xray of an old knee surgery in order to know whether there was any metal pins or staples in my knee. So, this time, when we were looking at the Xray, I asked if I could take a picture with my cell phone. They said, ‘Sure.’ I also took a picture of the written report. You’d be surprised at the quality of the results. I’ve created a folder on my computer called medical records and it contains photographs of all pertinent records. Now *that* doesn’t take up any space!

MedicAlert

Because of a family member with Alzheimer’s, I’ve been learning about the MedicAlert + Safe Return program. The more I learn, the more I think that *everyone* should have a MedicAlert bracelet. Especially travelers. The bracelet is engraved with your member ID number and the MedicAlert phone number. If you are ever in a situation requiring the services of emergency personnel, they will see the bracelet, call the number and be able to find out the phone numbers for your emergency contacts, as well as any allergies, conditions, and Doctor phone numbers. This is life-saving stuff. If you change Doctors, you go online, log in to your MedicAlert account, and update the information yourself. Easily done. You pay $25/year for the service. There is a MedicAlert ‘Gold’ program for $9.95/mo to store all your records.

Google Health

I have recently started using the free online medical records system by Google at Google Health. In addition to allowing me to enter Doctors, Allergies, Conditions, Procedures and Test results, I can also:

Upload files like the picture I took of the knee Xray.
You can even track test results, like Cholesteral levels, over time on a graph.
You can print out a profile and use that when you go to a new doctor, saving you a lot of time filling out their forms.
If you deal with any of the Hospitals, Doctors, or Pharmacies that partner with Google Health, you can import all their information. For example, if you use the Walgreens pharmacy, you can import your prescription history by linking your Walgreens profile with Google Health.

Security

I’m betting that the first thing many people will say is,

“I don’t want to put my medical information on the web.”

Security is very good on Google Health and many others – but any information on the Internet is subject to possible exposure. It’s being naive to think that your information isn’t already out there. With all the Pharmacies, Hospitals, Doctors and Insurance companies – I think your medical information is already on the web. The main problem with this information is that *you* don’t have access to it! In my book, the benefits of having all my important medical information in one place where I can get to it anytime I need it, *far* outweigh the potential risk of exposure. But that’s me – if you feel otherwise, you can stick to your paper records.

Other Options

Google Health is not the only player in this field. Microsoft offers Health Vault; if you’re a Veteran, you should check out My HealtheVet; No More Clipboard has a free account and a premium account for $9.95/year and has received excellent reviews. I found a lot of my information in this fellow RVers blog post: Traveling with your Medical Records.

What about you? How do you manage your medical records as you travel?

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksonTour.com