There are many services that already incorporate online records for your medical history, prescriptions, etc. For instance, CVS, Blue Cross of MA, Quest Diagnostics and many clinics store up to 2 years of your medical history. It is easy to get on Google Health and authorize those sites to import data into your Google Health profile. This way your treatments at the clinic and prescriptions at the drug store all stay in one handy place.
The advantage to using Google Health is having access to all of your own personal files in one location. You can set sharing permissions, and import whatever data from whatever doctor you need. You can even manually import data if you have paper copies of your records. The point is that the more data you have the better diagnosis and treatment you will get. This is especially helpful for those who are acting as guardian of the elderly. Often they end up on so many different medications it is hard to keep track of them. Instead of logging everything in a journal take advantage of Google Health and help your parents, children, and loved ones stay healthy for years to come.
One of the most difficult things about switching healthcare providers, visiting specialists, and being prescribed medication is that often your doctor doesn’t know what your previous doctor has prescribed or done; This includes lab work. millions are spent every year on duplicate lab tests. Imagine how much you will save, and your insurance companies will save when people start synchronizing information and start keeping their own records so that the story doesn’t change every time there’s a new form to fill out.
Keeping your doctors consistently informed is vital, the more they know the easier it is to help you. Often doctors can cause harm because of misinformation, chopping off the wrong limb during a surgery. Don’t risk it! Start creating a data mine of your own, on yourself. Share it with family and doctors to keep you as healthy as possible. There are so many pharmaceuticals nowadays its almost impossible ot keep track of them all and which ones conflict.
As a side note: wouldn’t it be interesting if Google Health had a Datastore of all pharmaceuticals and their side effects, so that if you are taking two that can cause you harm it would put up a red flag? Perhaps I will suggest this myself.
Google has a service that they are working on perfecting, it’s known as Google Health. It is a place where you can either automatically or manually import your medical history, lab results, etc. in order to share it with your doctor. It even allows you to print out small sized forms to give to yoru doctor when he asks for any medical information.
Imagine that! A free service that allows you to store your medical history and control it yourself! Imagine being able to see a history and record of all the medicines you have and are taking, and then being able to give it to your doctor so he doesn’t prescribe a conflicting medication! This is a blessing that is very little known. For more information check out http://www.google.com/intl/en-US/health/about/.
