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Still In Search of a Personal Health Record & Trying Healthvault

Recently I completed a consultation on a new patient. This person had moved to San Francisco a few years ago, and was not sure he was satisfied with the care he was obtaining from his new PCP.

The consultation was a bit challenging for me, because I had no past medical records available to review. Nothing from the old cadre of doctors on the East Coast, nothing from the current PCP, not even anything from a recent hospitalization. No laboratory results, no studies.

(In truth, I usually decline to schedule an initial consultation until some of this information is available. I need this type of information in order to do my work assessing the person’s health and the current medical management plan.)

As I often do, I encouraged this patient and his family to start maintaining a personal health record (PHR): some kind of collection of his key medical information, all in one place and under their control. I explained that this would be a huge help if they wanted to

  • Obtain second opinions when necessary
  • Transfer to a new PCP
  • Be able to check on how the chronic conditions were being managed and consider other options
  • Get better medical care in the event of an emergency or possibly even while traveling

In its simplest form, a PHR is a collection of papers kept in a binder or perhaps file cabinet. Paper can be hard to keep organized, however, and can only be searched effectively if everything was first filed in an organized fashion.

So a digital approach would seem to be in order. Digital information is easier to search, and often more portable than paper information.

But I was annoyed to find that yet again, after recommending this family set up and maintain a PHR, I couldn’t actually recommend a specific product or service. This was surprising to me, because it was almost three years ago that I wrote this article for the Geriatrics for Caregivers Blog: Tools for Caregivers: Keeping & Organizing Medical Information.

Yet today, I still cannot recommend a tool that will do the following: [Read more…] about Still In Search of a Personal Health Record & Trying Healthvault

Getting & transferring a person’s health information: still slow and inefficient

I have been thinking again about people’s medical information recently.

First of all, most people have no copy of their own health information. Recently a family member went for an annual physical, and the clinician dutifully addressed the question of colonoscopy. My relative thinks she had one in the past few years, but the doctor doesn’t have a record, and no one is sure how to find it.

I told my relative that when they do locate the results, she should get a copy and keep it. And keep copies of her laboratory results too, for that matter. “Why would I do that? Doctors keep those things.” was her response.

Sigh. Hasn’t she noticed how often doctors can’t find something, or don’t have it?

When I take my car to the shop to have something serviced, I keep a record of what was done. Same goes for any work done on my home. And many people I know do the same.

However, those same people generally don’t think to keep records of what was done to their bodies. Even though it’s arguably more important than what was done to their cars.

Furthermore, if you decide to take your car to a new mechanic — maybe you weren’t sure about the old one, or maybe you moved to a new town — would you show up with no records of the work done on your car so far?

Well, you might, but it’s not a great idea. When assessing the state of a car — or a person’s health — it’s extremely useful to know what has happened in the past, and what other professionals have done or attempted, when it comes to diagnostics and treatment plans.

So really, why don’t more people maintain at least a rudimentary personal health record? [Read more…] about Getting & transferring a person’s health information: still slow and inefficient

GeriTech’s Take on AARP’s 5th Health Innovation @50+ LivePitch

On Wednesday April 27, 2016, AARP hosted its fifth Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch event, an event that allows 10 chosen start-ups to pitch to a consumer audience and a panel of venture capitalists.

This year the event’s description seemed a bit different than in prior years, with a new emphasis on caregiving: “Innovation@50+ is a one day pitch competition for emerging startups in the healthy living space with a focus on caregiving.”

As in prior years, there did not seem to be much judging or input from anyone whose primary work and expertise is to improve the health of people aged 50+, or to improve the lives of family caregivers for that matter.

In this post, I’ll list brief descriptions of the finalists, comment on how promising they seem to me — in terms of improving the healthcare of older adults and the lives of family caregivers— and tell you which products I’m most interested in. To see what I’ve thought of past LivePitch finalists, here’s my coverage of the first, second, third, and fourth cohorts.

GeriTech’s quick take on the AARP LivePitch finalists

Here are the AARP descriptions of the companies/products presented at the LivePitch event, along with my initial reactions. I took a quick look at everyone’s websites, and for certain web-based products tried them out for a little bit, but have not tried any of these products in depth.

Cake: “Cake is the easiest way to do end-of-life planning. We break down a daunting and difficult task into simple, bite-size chunks, and provide experts who can answer your questions. Your online CAKE profile is a living document of your end-of-life preferences that is easy to access, update, and share.”

GeriTech’s comments: [Read more…] about GeriTech’s Take on AARP’s 5th Health Innovation @50+ LivePitch

Care Coordination Around Hospitalization, Part 2

You may be wondering what happened with Ken, whom I wrote about in my last post.

Well, he stayed in the hospital for 4 days. At the end of his first day, a palliative care consultant called me and left me a voicemail with recommendations related to pain and constipation. He left me a cell phone number. He didn’t answer when I called him back, so I left a brief message and thanked him for the update.

But no hospitalist ever called me and no updates were faxed to me. On the fourth day (a Monday), I called the floor and again asked to speak to his doctor. His nurse came to the phone, explained to me the discharge plans, and then asked if there was anything else I needed.

Well, yes. I need to know what happened to him medically, not just what facility they were planning to discharge him to. Why did they keep him for so many days? Ken himself had left me messages saying the doctors were doing a lot of tests but not telling him the results. (Patient-centered hospital care, where art thou?)

The nurse was unable to answer these questions. I said that I wanted results of the tests faxed to me, and that I’d also like to talk to his doctor.

Several hours later, a doctor finally called me. He sounded young and harried. “So, what do you need to know?” he asked me. [Read more…] about Care Coordination Around Hospitalization, Part 2

Care coordination when patients go to ED or hospital

My patient, who lives in assisted-living, went to the Emergency Dept and then was hospitalized last night. (We’ll call him Ken.)

So once again I get to see what works well and what works less well, when it comes to care coordination. As usual, I’m not impressed, although things could be worse.

In part, they are not so bad because I’m the one who urged Ken to go the ER. Whereas my patients are often sent to ER without anyone even calling me first, in this case, I knew he was going, and was even able to take action to smooth the process.

An added bonus: Ken has a  long-time care manager who I connect with regularly, and she arranged for the transportation there and stayed with him for the first few hours.

Furthermore, to help Ken get the right care from the ER and to facilitate coordination of care, yesterday I wrote a note for the ER doctors. Ken’s care manager brought this with them to the ER, along with a medication list from the facility.

In my note, I summarized:

  • The most important aspects of Ken’s past medical history
  • Recent changes to his health — including recent lab and radiology results — and why we were sending him to the ER
  • Information on Ken’s background, including the fact that he’d been living at the facility for a few years, that he’d had the same care manager for years, and that he’d been homebound due to a psychiatric condition, which caused him to refuse to leave the facility to see his assigned PCP
  • Information regarding Ken’s preferences for medical care, including the fact that he’d consistently refused medical care meant to extend his life, and had repeatedly emphasized a desire to have pain and comfort addressed
  • Information regarding Ken’s usual mental capacities and decision-making capabilities
  • My contact information (phone and fax)

In short, Ken arrived at the ER better equipped than most to facilitate care coordination.

Now here is what has happened so far:

  • I have heard nothing from the ED, by phone or fax. It was Ken’s care manager who sent me an update last night, and then this morning informing me he’d been admitted.
  • I called the hospital this morning and left a message saying I wanted the nurse or doctor to call me. That was over 4 hours ago and nothing yet.

I’m not surprised by this, but it’s still disappointing. If I send a patient to the ER, with a note that includes my fax number, is it crazy to expect the clinicians to fax me something about what they found and did??

How I did get an update on my patient’s ER course and hospitalization

[Read more…] about Care coordination when patients go to ED or hospital