Medem offers personal health record service

The company, which is owned by medical associations, says it will enable all Americans to create their own online records free of charge.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. June 6, 2005.

On May 9, Medem Inc. rolled out a service allowing patients to create and share a free, Web-based personal health record with their physician and with hospital emergency departments.

Called iHealthRecord, the service Medem unveiled at a news conference in Washington, D.C., gives physicians access to information about patient care occurring outside their office that they don't currently have access to. Those data include patients' current medical conditions, medications, past surgeries, allergies and end-of-life directives, said Ed Fotsch, MD, CEO of Medem, which is partly owned by the American Medical Association. "The big challenge in health care is data access," he said. "[Now] you fly blind. You don't know the [patients'] medications, you don't know their conditions."

AMA Chair J. James Rohack, MD, agreed at the news conference that PHRs will help physicians and improve patient care and safety.

"In the long run, systems like this will save physicians and patients both time and money through increased efficiencies and stronger communication networks," Dr. Rohack said. Still, he cautioned that while patient health records will help "reduce medical errors and save lives" they aren't a substitute for in-office interactions. "Of course, nothing will replace the power of a patient and a physician sitting down and talking about personal health goals," Dr. Rohack said.

A PHR ideally contains all the health information about a patient since birth but shouldn't be confused with an electronic medical record. The PHR is created, controlled and owned by patients who decide who can view their record. The EMR is owned and controlled by physicians or hospitals. PHRs -- a major component of President Bush's plan to implement a national health information network -- are seen as a tool for improving care by getting patients more actively engaged in their own care.