MY HEALTH RECORD, Australia's digitized medical record system, is growing at the rate of one new registration every 38 seconds and has now topped the four million mark.
The system keeps a record of a patient's medical history in one location including prescription medications, blood tests, scans results, and organ donor preference and allows instant access by GPs, specialists and emergency departments.
Health Minister Sussan Ley said yesterday that following the recent re-launch of My Health Record there had been a steady increase in registrations.
“With a My Health Record, both a patient and their healthcare professional can gain immediate access to important health information on-line,” she said.
“This can improve co-ordinated care outcomes, reduce duplication and provide vital information in emergency situations.
“In the past four weeks alone, there has been an average of 2,200 new registrations every day, or one new My Health Record created every 38 seconds.
“With changes to the General Practice incentive, healthcare providers are increasingly contributing and viewing on-line health information about their patients. We are now seeing one upload of clinical health information from a healthcare provider every 21 seconds.”
Ms Ley said every day one in five GPs will see a patient for whom they have little or no information at all. With the My Health Record, they increasingly had access to at least some information about a patient.
“This may be a Medicare claim or pharmacy prescription, or clinical information uploaded by other healthcare providers such as a specialist, hospital and pharmacy.
A My Health Record puts the power in the hands of health consumers to decide with whom they share their health information,” Ms Ley said.
