This solution will make it easier for patients to track and share data with their healthcare provider who in turn can gain a better understanding of personal trends and make more informed decisions on medication, diet and exercise.

Bayer’s Contour USB meter gives you easy access to the knowledge you need to help better manage your diabetes. Get yours today to plug into a whole new experience that includes:

• AutoLog technology for intuitive marking of pre-meal and post-meal test results
• Plug & play technology for instant access to patterns and trends
• 2000-result memory that supports long-term trend tracking
• Quick and easy diabetes data sharing
• Brightly colored display and lighted test strip port
• Rechargeable battery that can charge from any USB port
• USB-connector and integrated diabetes management software

Resources:
Check out the device at the source,
Read a full review on the Wall Street Journal site.

There is an opt in option that will allow users to share their data anonymously to Asthma researchers. Once aggregated, the information can provide real time data to Doctors which can better help them to treat patients.

It’s interesting to think of how applications like this will begin to evolve on mobile platforms and the creators of AsthmaMD have put a great deal of thought into how best to leverage the mobile platform for better outcomes.

In an e-mail posted on TechCruch by Salim Madjd one of the creators of the app outlines a few of the possibles that they are exploring:

Just imagine what might be possible now with the data we gather from this app. For example, since we have precise location of patient and the time of their asthma activity we can correlate that against local pollutant count, adverse weather changes, and different type of pollutants. Or imagine if one area in a city shows higher per capita asthma severity than the rest, we can clearly show that in a map and alert the parent of a potential pollutant by a nearby business. Or imagine this data mashed up against a real estate site. For parents or to-be parents they can also look at the asthma activity in any specific area and make more informed decisions about where they want to move.

There is also ability to better understand the effect of different medications, on age groups, gender, on managing asthma caused by different type of triggers from pollutant to exercise, etc.

We can even alert users of higher asthma chances in real time if we detect users of similar asthma history reporting asthma issues. Ultimately we could even send tweeter streams with zipcode or geocode of areas with asthma flare ups on real time. This app has the potential to make an impact on people lives unlike anything we’ve seen before and on personal level is one of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on.

Resources:

Read the release article on TechCruch,
Go right to the source AsthmaMD’s website.

While the benefits of a PHR to the patient seem on the surface to be quite obvious and most of the discussion thus far of services such as Microsoft’s Health Vault have revolved around patient and consumer adoption, Jacob Goldstein turns the discussion on its head and asks “but will any doctor’s trust it”?

A very good question.

Many doctors order new tests at their own labs rather than trust, or take the time to obtain previous existing results. The adoption of an EMR is expected to reduce this pattern of duplication and administration of unnecessary tests by providing a trusted and centrally available repository of medical information. Maintained and administrated by hospitals or government agencies, doctors may at first be apprehensive of accepting data contained in the EMR, however under these circumstances one must expect that eventually adoption rates will reach a tipping point and the EMR will become a common place tool in the doctor’s day to day work flow.

When however the administrator of the PHR is a private corporation such as Microsoft or Google, and maintenance of the data is conducted by the patient, will physicians be willing and for that matter should they, rely on this information to make critical decisions regarding the care of their patients?

Steve Leiber the President and CEO of HIMSS says no:

Physicians aren’t going to trust it. Patients could show up and hand over their memory stick or a Internet address for the files, but doctors on the receiving end might be wary of believing what the records says. “It’s outside a protected chain, the second doctors are going to repeat those tests.

While he doesn’t necessarily take up the cause of the “yes” camp, John Moore at Chilmark Research has posted an excellent rebuttal to the piece noting that HIMSS is very much supported by the traditional EMR vendors and only to some degree by the new and emerging PHR vendors. Whether this has an impact or not on Mr. Leiber’s thoughts on the matter are of course relevant; however the questions he raises are worthwhile and should be asked and investigated by not only patients, doctors, but also the PHR vendors themselves.

Regardless of the immediate outcome of the debate, where such PHR services may prove initially helpful are in areas such as providing a list of allergies and other non critical medical information when a patient presents at an ER, visits a walk-in clinic or other such non routine interactions with healthcare providers. In this case the PHR would complement the EHR of the patient and may in some cases provide significant value to the attending clinician.

References:

The Wall Street Journal Health Blog
How Personal Health Records Could Make Care Less Efficient

Chilmark Research
HIMSS Leader Raises Doubts on PHRs

Vince does a great job comparing and contrasting Google Health (GH) and Microsoft HealthVault (HV) complete with a score card:

A First Comparison of Google Health and MS HealthVault

Link via Longwoods Blog.

Here are a few examples that I have come across and found helpful in shaping my thinking:

Frost and Sullivan provide the following definitation of the PHR in their research entitled Opportunity and Trends in the U.S. Personal Health Records Markets.

Personal health record (PHR) – An electronic, universally available, lifelong resource of health information needed by individuals to make health decisions. Individuals own and manage the information in the PHR, which comes from health care providers and the individual. The PHR is maintained in a secure and private environment, with the individual determining rights of access. The PHR is separate from and does not replace the legal record of any provider.

HIMSS defines an ePHR as in a paper entitled HIMSS Personal Health Records Definition and Position Statement as follows:

An electronic Personal Health Record (“ePHR”) is a universally accessible, layperson comprehensible, lifelong tool for managing relevant health information, promoting health maintenance and assisting with chronic disease management via an interactive, common data set of electronic health information and e-health tools. The ePHR is owned, managed, and shared by the individual or his or her legal proxy(s) and must be secure to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the health information it contains. It is not a legal record unless so defined and is subject to various legal limitations.

Wikipedia’s entry on Personal Health Record is:

A personal health record or PHR is typically a health record that is initiated and maintained by an individual. An ideal PHR would provide a complete and accurate summary of the health and medical history of an individual by gathering data from many sources and making this information accessible online to anyone who has the necessary electronic credentials to view the information.

Clicking through to the manufacturer’s site I found the following info:

Having up-to-date personal medical information immediately available to medical professionals could save your life in an emergency situation. MiCARD is the size of a credit card, and only slightly thicker. Once your personal medical data is loaded on your MiCARD, it is easily carried in your wallet or purse. The MiCARD system includes two vital components: private and secure online storage for your medical data with NoMoreClipboard.com, and the portable MiCARD.

Your MiCARD carries the following kinds of information:

• Critical Medical Conditions
• Personal Photo
• Blood Type
• Physician Information
• Medications & Dosages
• Allergies
• Insurance Information
• Eyeglass and Contact Lens Prescription Data
• Immunizations

In an emergency doctors, nurses, EMTs, police and fire dept. personnel push one of the two activation buttons on MiCARD to instantly access medical information on a high-resolution screen. No Internet or computer is needed to access your data during an emergency.

The specs for the MiCard are:

• Weight: 1.25 ounces
• Color Screen
• Screen Size: 2 inches
• Thickness: 1/8th inch
• Dimensions: 3.5 inches X 2 inches
• Rechargeable Battery
• USB Port

The basis of the paper is that e-Patients are beginning to drive a healthcare revolution tantamount to the changes the manufacturing industry experienced during the industrial revolution yet very much in the spirit of the Open Source movement. The underlying premise is that access to medical knowledge and wisdom is no longer the exclusive territory of healthcare professionals as a world in which information and content is easily accessed and created by the patients themselves transforms the way healthcare is to be delivered and perceived in the coming years.

More and more e-Patients want not only access to information regarding their health, but also the right and the tools to manage their own personal health records, collaborate with clinicians on treatment and support others that may have similar conditions or diseases. Self managed care and patient initiated research will also become part of this Open Source Healthcare system.

The preference of the paper states “We offer this White Paper as a series of preliminary notes on this new operating system” which further hints at the open source theme to the research and presentation. Furthermore, the white paper is not only available in a standard PDF format, but also in an editable Wiki format.

Very cool and worthwhile reading.