Palo Alto Medical Foundation Patients Use Electronic Health Records System
About 54,000 at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation have been using a personal health record system that provides them with access to their health information and helps them become more active participants in the health care process, United Press International reports.
About 54,000 at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation have been using a personal health record system that provides them with access to their health information and helps them become more active participants in the health care process, United Press International reports.
Patients can log onto a Web site to view lab results, renew drug prescriptions or cancel a physician appointment. Patients also can use the Web-based system to send a question to their physicians. Patients can use the PHR system to ask billing and other non-medical questions.
In addition, patients can use the system to view a personal health summary; tests results; graphs of their progress controlling weight, cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions; and check their risk of developing acute problems such as heart attacks or strokes.
System administrators this year will add an "e-Visits" feature that will allow patients to interact online with their physicians for non-emergency problems such as colds and allergy symptoms. It also will add an online disease-management feature that will enable patients with conditions such as diabetes to send data frequently from home-monitoring devices to their physicians and receive feedback on how to maintain their health (March, United Press International, 12/28).