Where Should Patients Medical Records (PHR) Be Available

Medical data have always been exchanged between care providers. The scope extands far beyond the walls of the facility where a patients is usually seen.

Care management organisations would like to have medical information available for questions about eligibility for treatment. Delivery networks (such as hospitals and clinics) would like PHR to be available to the services within the system (clinical, administrative, and financial). Individual healthcare providers would like the PHR to be available to them as the patient enters their practice. Patients will want their records to be available wherever they present themselves to get care.

Traditional methods include the telephone, fax, and post, but these are inferior to computerised communication methods in ease of use, speed of access, cost, and reliability. The development of email has made medical data exchange simple and quick, but it is still considered insecure and operates only between users who know each other's address. Depending on the parties involved, email correspondence may be slow or unreliable. Evidently, any system that attempts to provide the "correct" scope of access should be able to cover all of the above simultaneously. In consequence, such a system should focus on a flexible delivery mechanism. As the location of the point of care cannot be predetermined, global availability is needed. The world wide web could fulfil this requirement.