Medical Records. Everyone has them. Have you ever had to go on a hunt for your shot records from decades ago because an employer or school required them? How did that work out for ya? Trying to keep track of and remember all of your family's medical information can be a daunting task. If you're like most of us, you've got a stack or stacks of papers scattered throughout the house — or in one room if you're really organized! We're on the lookout for an easier, more efficient way of keeping this information organized and safely accessible when needed.Whether you're a single person or managing a family with multiple records, or traveling with the military, is an online medical record-keeping service for you? Fast, easy, secure, reliable and compliant is what we're aiming to find out about services currently available for medical record-keeping. Anything that will help make managing a family easier and more efficient is what we're all about, so this is what we're discussing this week on Moms Gone Geek.

Special Note: When Googling information on this topic use the following terms and acronyms: PHR (Personal Health Records) or PHRM (Personal Health Records Management).

There are a lot of applications and services out there for managing your personal medical records at home on your computer, up in the cloud for online access or both — so much that it's overwhelming. We've reviewed just a few that we'll discuss here, but please give us some feedback on services, methods and apps you've tried and liked.

Melissa reviews and discusses the current state of EMR for public and private sectors and what you should consider before investing the time and effort into the task of electronically documenting your medical records for the family.

What You Need to Know About Privacy in Medical Records

Understanding HIPAA Privacy for Consumers

Articles on Healthcare Reform in Politics and Technology Concerning EMR

State Privacy Laws May Undercut Electronic Medical Records (via ars technica)

Obama: We need EMRs; NAS Report: Be Careful What You Ask For (via ars technica)

NY Times reports: “Our experience here is that it’s just hard,” Dr. Mostashari said. “It’s not impossible.”

Personal Consumer Services & Applications for Managing Yours and Family Records

Polka

iPhone app for Polka Health
(called My Health on website)

Google Health

Review Notes

• Google Health is currently only available in the United States. Polka is available for registration outside U.S., however, all records are stored in the US where US privacy terms apply. (Probably a good thing?)

• Use Google Health at your own risk understanding that transmission to third parties, for example, a prescription service, is governed by THOSE sites, their technologies and security methods. You're safe with Google, but you open a hole when you share with third party services, so be sure to thoroughly review their privacy and protection policies as well before sharing information.

• Section 4 Use of Your Information in the Google Health TOS states: " Google is not a "covered entity" under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the regulations promulgated thereunder ("HIPAA"). As a result, HIPAA does not apply to the transmission of health information by Google to any third party."

• Polka discloses the following in their Privacy Statement under Use of Contact Information (emphasis is our editorial): "In addition, we may use your contact information to market to you, and provide you with information about, our products and services, including but not limited to our Service. If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive such information or communications from us, please follow the unsubscribe instructions provided in any of the communications."
  
  
Furthermore, they also state in their Information Sharing and Disclosure regarding Service Providers: "We engage certain trusted third parties to perform functions and provide services to us, including, without limitation, hosting and maintenance, customer relationship, database storage and management, and direct marketing campaigns. We will share your personally identifiable information with these third parties, but only to the extent necessary to perform these functions and provide such services, and only pursuant to binding contractual obligations requiring such third parties to maintain the privacy and security of your data."

These are just some things to consider when signing up for these services. Both services are extremely similar in their TOS and Privacy Statements, just worded slightly differently. Polka clearly states they may use your information for direct marketing campaigns which may be kind of disconcerting no matter how carefully your information is closely guarded. It may be that Google Health does the exact same thing in a different way, but they have not chosen to word like this. As always, use at your own risk and know your mileage may vary.

Another thing to look for when deciding if a particular service or application is right for you is what kind of continued support you can reasonably expect. If a service loses focus or goes belly-up, where does your data go? There have been applications released in the past few years, but when I went to their site for a review, the information was grossly outdated or the link had a bad address. Look for services that have a large following, lots of reviews (and positive ones at that) and also look at their help or support section. Check to see what, if any kind of exporting features exist. If you're able to export your data into a PDF or text file, at least you'll have a backup in case the service fails your expectations. Think carefully about sharing your digital information with third party partners or affiliates. Do the same kind of homework on them as well. Review their privacy policies and TOS.

It would be a good idea to have a printed hard copy of the most important emergency medical information in your wallet near your ID because what good is digital data on your phone if your device is either locked or too cumbersome to access by hospital staff? Think of a mobile app as a handy way for YOU to access the information you need at the time you need it, but don't think of a mobile app as something to be accessed by emergency personnel. Research in public forums concludes that most EMTs will not be checking your mobile device for information in a crisis situation so do not count on an app to assist in saving your life. Google Health does have a print wallet-sized feature and I thought that was handy and a good idea.

For you non-Google supporters (we still love you) there are other PHR web services out there, but we're only going to list a couple:

Microsoft HealthVault

PassportMD