Eric Topol, MD, tweeted an interesting list of reasons for patients owning their medical data. Entitled “It’s Your Medical Data”, the tweet has garnered much interest and has been retweeted almost 1,000 times.
Dr. Topol, is a cardiologist, geneticist, and digital medicine researcher. Before moving to La Jolla, Calif.-based Scripps Translational Science Institute in 2006, Topol served as chairman of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic (1991-2005) and founded the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. He has written several books, including “The Patient Will See You Now”, which was prophetic in its picture of the future of healthcare in a digital world.
Patients – It’s Your Medical Data
According to Topol, patients — not physicians and hospitals — deserve to own their personal medical data. Additionally, “access or ‘control’ of your data is not adequate”.
Among the themes in his list:
- Security of data – “it is worth more than any other type of data”, “it’s being widely sold, stolen and hacked”, it “is precious”.
- Lives in silos – “Hospitals won’t or can’t share your data”, You’d like to share it for medical research, but can’t get it”, “no health system/insurer has all your data”
- Better for you – “Your EHR was designed to maximize billing, not to help your health”, “you are more engaged and have better outcomes”, “you can handle the truth”.
- More efficient – “You are more apt to share it”, “~ 10% of medical scans are unnecessary duplicated”, “It requires comprehensive, continuous, seamless updating”.
ISeeYouCare agrees with Dr. Topol’s assessment. That is why we have made patient access to their health records the centerpiece for our solutions. Patient-centric healthcare is therefore a necessity for the future of our broken healthcare system.
Dr. Topol ends with two powerful reasons for you owning your personal health record. First, he states that “it should be a civil right”. After all, it is about you and only you. And, you need it more than anyone else. Which leads to the final point, “it could save your life”. Access to your personal health record, or “Comprehensive Medical Record”, as we call it, is paramount for better patient outcomes.
For more information about our patient-centric, disruptive healthcare platform, please contact us today.