Patients' Ability to Access Medical Records Online - MyChart May be a Step in The Right Direction For Patients to Access Medical Records and Decrease Inaccuracies

It has long been a pet peeve of mine how one sided the information contained in medical records can be. Patients have no control over the information that is put into their medical records. They cannot make changes to them, nor can they have inaccuracies stricken. Consequently, I believe the utilization of the internet and patient's online access to their medical records is definitely a step in the right direction. I am very excited to hear about the new MyChart being introduced by the University of Utah.

The University of Utah reports that their patients will now have a more user friendly experience with their medical records and accessibility to doctors. This is made possible by the implementation of a new program called MyChart. MyChart director Curtis C. Newman explains MyChart as "A secure online health management tool that connects University of Utah Health Care patients to portions of their personal medical record."

With MyChart, you can view: your health summary; current medications; test results; request medical appointments; request prescription renewals; track your immunization history; communicate electronically with care providers; access trusted health information resources; etc. All of this is complimentary, and can be done simply by acquiring a user name and password.

The creators of this program maintain that there are revolutionary benefits to what MyChart can offer. Apart from what they call being a very "patient centered," MyChart is also extremely fast in comparison to the conventional means of dealing with the health care system. Medical records and lab results are available to the patients almost instantaneously with when they are received and recorded by doctors. This aspect really excites me as the process to obtain medical records has been radically slowed with the implementation of HIPAA.

If all goes well, MyChart hopes to satisfy the needs of patients and decongest the medical world by granting patients the ability to interact with their health care providers and medical records. I sincerely hope that more health care providers will join this movement. This may help to decrease inaccuracies in medical records, or at least allow patients the ability to voice concern. Too, if all physicians have access to medical records in one central location, a decrease in time expenditure and errors will likely follow.