BBC medical records story

[dr alan hassey]

There are a few special cases where records are held by patients >
antenatal, child health & other "shared care" scenarios (e.g. diabetic
clinics). These generally work well where patient & health professional
are motivated to use the record. More general primary or secondary care
would require a large A4 folder (perhaps several!) or a large capacity
portable storage device. The IT industry & health professionals have
been trying to create something like this for years - without achieving
any meaningful success (technical & financial constraints). Perhaps what
we need is the ability to link up various electronic patient records
(GP, A&E etc) when the situation requires AND with the explicit
participation of the patient concerned or their parent/guardian where
that is not possible. In this case, the health professional or
organisation acts as a custodian of the patient record. I do not believe
that patients can act as custodians for more than a small part of their
medical records. 

===
Dr Alan Hassey (alan@hassey@btinternet.com)
RCGP Health Informatics Standing Group
Fisher Medical Centre Research Unit
=== 

-----Original Message-----
From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
[mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of Peter
Gutmann
Sent: 18 March 2002 13:00
To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Subject: Re: BBC medical records story


Ross Anderson <Ross.Anderson@cl.cam.ac.uk> writes:

>>patient-administered records are a non-starter for technical and 
>>practical reasons.
>
>Bollocks.
>
>Pregnancy records are patient held, and have been for years. They are 
>time- critical and important, thus cannot be left to the bureaucrats.

That's a single special case in which the patient has considerable
incentive (and an unchangeable, fixed schedule) to take care of things.
I can't see the average patient (eg the typical bloke who won't go and
see a doctor until after his leg has fallen off from gangrene) doing
this.

Peter.