Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX September/October 2004

SPECIAL REPORT: IT IN HEALTHCARE

One important goal for health information technology is to provide patients with greater access to their own records. A system that offers just such functionality can now be seen in action via an on-line demo of PatientSite, a Web site created for patients of Boston's CareGroup by John Halamka, MD, its CIO (and the CIO of Harvard Medical School).

As Halamka explains in the accompanying article, the information that patients obtain is not provided by any one system. Instead, the data are made available by "middleware" that communicates with various health information systems to bring a great variety of patient information together on a single site. One million patients are in the CareGroup system, and all have access to their records through PatientSite, where the information is grouped into such categories as problems, reports, medications, allergies, visits, and x-rays.

Beyond merely presenting information, the site also enables patients to take actions that help them participate in managing their own care. For example, patients can send prescription requests to pharmacies, handle their doctor appointments (including scheduling, rescheduling and canceling), request referrals, view their account statements, and send and track e-mail to their healthcare providers.

The CareGroup site began in 1999, but other large systems are also on the move. In May, Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest nonprofit HMO (with 8 million members), announced that it had gone live with its own on-line patient records system, called KP HealthConnect. Kaiser's system also gives patients access to both medical and billing records, and the capability to make appointments and refill prescriptions. The rollout began in Kaiser's Hawaii region and is projected to be systemwide by 2006.

To view the demo of CareGroup's PatientSite, visit http://patientsite.caregroup.org.

Copyright ©2004 MX