New Orleans, Katrina, Gustav and Electronic Medical Records

As we await Hurricane Gustav's landfall in the US, we're reminded that there is one thing we can do to improve our health that has nothing to do with what we eat, drink, smoke or how much exercise we get.

You'll remember three years ago when Katrina caused death and destruction. For many months afterwards as refugees were being resettled in areas outside New Orleans, they were having to establish new relationships with doctors and other providers. Of course, no medical records were to be had, because the paper-based ones had been destroyed. That means that for some people, critical information such as test results or treatment progress was not available. There's no question that the interruption of the flow of information, added to the horror and stress of the escape, had a negative effect on the health of thousands of evacuees.

There are two ways that situation can be alleviated -- the situation that causes medical records to be lost.

For one, patients can choose to visit doctors or use medical facilities that subscribe to EMR programs -- Electronic Medical Records. In particular, those EMR programs that allow patient access, so if a patient ends up somewhere beyond his or her own home area, those records can be accessed and medical care can pick up where it left off.

EMRs are useful because even though the information is compiled using a medical office's computers, the records are stored in several places, even in another city or another state. So if a disaster strikes in one place, the records are still available from another place they've been stored.

I'll warn you up front, though. It's tough to find providers who offer EMRs. The majority don't, despite even the federal government's incentives to get them established. They are very expensive and few systems are intuitive, so providers don't invest in the technology needed. They say they are waiting for a system that is easier to use and more affordable.

Alternatively, the second way to alleviate the loss of records possibility is to develop our own PHRs -- personal health records. Here are some do's and don'ts for setting up PHRs:

• DO: use a system that is already available. You can do this online (see the DON'T warning below) or you can keep your records on a flash drive which you keep with you. (This is easy, here are the instructions.) The available systems are good because they show you what records are important.
• DO: keep your records updated. Each time you visit the doctor, have a new test, are diagnosed with something new or different from before, receive treatment -- make sure you record it all.
• DO: keep your records private, but make sure someone else (a spouse, family member, loved one) can access them in case something happens and you are unable to give anyone whatever passwords are needed to get into the information.
• DON'T: use any of the free online PHR services -- because they aren't free. Yes, I know there are plenty of "promises" out there -- but as you've heard before -- there is no such thing. So if a website offers you a free PHR, don't take the bait. go back to the first DO above and find one of the PHR programs listed there.

My prayers and thoughts are with those who live in the path of any hurricane -- or tornado or earthquake or blizzard -- Mother Nature can be cruel. I hope those of you who know your health records can mean life or death will be prepared by making sure your records are accessible electronically in a variety of ways.
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