Oct 25 2010
The Wall Street Journal: A crop of websites to help patients store medical information and monitor their health are gaining attention. "With people over 50 increasingly focused on ways to monitor and measure their health, [online personal health records, or PHRs] are drawing more attention. In addition to Microsoft Corp.'s [HealthVault], other well-known PHRs include Google Inc.'s Google Health and WebMD Health Manager from WebMD Health Corp. These tools can store your entire health history, saving you from chasing medical details spread over countless slips of paper from pharmacies, doctors and laboratories." Only about 4 percent of online users maintain web-based health records (Borzo, 10/25).
The Washington Post: Surescripts, the Arlington-based electronic prescribing company, is also launching a Web-based product targeted to physicians. "The move comes as the White House continues to encourage the modernization of medical record-keeping and is gearing up to release $20 billion in stimulus funds toward that end. … Surescripts' new platform is loosely based on its existing service, allowing doctors to issue prescriptions electronically and cross-check script histories with participating pharmacies. Building upon that exchange, the company has created a subscription-only network, through which physicians can share a broader range of patient information with each other" (Douglas, 10/25).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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