Kevin Linder

iHealthRecord.org is a service run by Medem, a nonprofit founded in 1999 by the American Medical Association and six other medical societies. They offer free and secure services for patients to keep track of their health history and prescriptions. They are hoping, with offering these free services, more people will start to track and control their health records. With more patients doing this, the hope is it will start to pressure doctors into using paperless methods to track patient records and prescribe medications (and thereby reducing the estimated 50,000 to 100,000 deaths each year from medical errors).

Using the website, not only can you input your medical history, you can also carry around an ID card that in case of an emergency, any doctor can use the information on the card to look up your complete history before trying to treat you. You can also be kept updated if any drugs you happen to be taken are taken off the shelf for any reason.

My worse fear has always gotten a call that someone I care about is in the hospital and doctors are needing information that I do not have and they are not able to get to in time. I don’t want to put the people I care about in the same position so I will ensure I take control of my health records and provide a easy and secure way for this data to be shared if the time should arise.