Q: Medical records were damaged in the flooding; will that be a significant problem?
A: If there was ever an argument for an electronic medical record that's stored centrally, this is it. You have people who have chronic medical conditions -- it's a broad issue in itself. But if there was a place that people could give you their PIN number and you could find, you know, "What has this diabetic been taking?" and "What are their prior problems?" Or this asthmatic, or this patient with congestive heart failure -- that would be a great boon. In New Orleans, all the records were lost. But even in the absence of a medical record, you need to have the systems in place to help people who don't have medication, who don't necessarily know what their chronic diseases are. They know they were taking a bunch of pills -- especially elderly people who are confused. You have to be able to provide care not just for the emergencies but for all these people who are vulnerable.
Medical Record-Keeping
The Californian
Murrieta man lauches Web site containing patients’ health histories.
Murrieta – Imagine you’re on vacation in Paris, Japan, or just down at the beach when calamity strikes and you become the victim of an accident.
Imagine that you also have a life-threatening medical condition, or an allergy to a particular medication, but you’re unconscious and unable to communicate with local doctors.
Murrieta resident Bill McNeill, a retired insurance company owner, said it’s a scary scenario, but one more people need to think about.
“What do you have in your pockets or in your wallet right now that would tell a doctor your vitals? Probably nothing, “McNeill said from his home office in Murrieta on Thursday.
“And what’s the first thing you hear doctors say when you’re watching ‘ER’ and they bring in a person on a stretcher? ‘What do we have on this person?’ The more information they have on you the more likely you are to live.”
To put that information at the fingertips of doctors anywhere anytime, McNeill has developed a plan that he said will revolutionize medical record keeping and save lives.
McNeill has turned his concept into a business, called World Health Plan, which puts a patient’s entire medical history on a secured Web site one click away from almost anywhere in the world.
Information like blood type, allergies, medications and immunization records will all be stored on a Web site that doctors can access through a card that plan members will keep on them at all times.
By having the card which will give doctors access to patients’ entire medical history, McNeill said thousands of lives can be saved each year.
“Ninety-eight thousand people died in this country last year because medical professionals got the wrong thing in the I-V bag,” McNeill said, citing a l999 report from the Institute of Medicine that states between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors in hospitals.
McNeill said even one life saved makes his business worth launching.
But McNeill has loftier goals.
In time, McNeill said, as many as 500 milllion people could be signed onto the program.
