[LINK] Your Medicare records online

[Darryl (Dassa) Lynch]

link-bounces at mailman1.anu.edu.au wrote:
|| We keep reading the scenario of an emergency admittance to a
|| care institution and the requirement for our medical
|| records. I wonder though that proportion of the actual
|| record the clinician or care giver would need. Do they
|| really need all my blood pressure readings over the past 20
|| years, notes of all visits to my GP, etc, or just a summary
|| indicating what medications I am on, basic vital signs and what else?
|| 
|| Maybe this represents a compromise over where the stuff gets
|| stored. A small proportion of the really necessary stuff on
|| central, government run, servers and the rest with me so I
|| can protect my security. That way I control who gets access
|| to the detail whilst still having the necessary stuff
|| available when needed.

The few times I've been in an emergency situation, past medical history was
not needed or used.  They were concerned about alergies and perhaps past
instances in at least one case but either I or someone close to me provided
the information required.  For the most part, the emergencies were unrelated
to any past history anyway.  After the treatment had progressed past the
emergency point, history became more important, mostly after 24 hours or so.

To my mind, the requirement to have a full history available immediately
upon visiting a medical centre of any type is hype only and an attempt to
confuse the issue.  There may be a small number of cases where it would be
of benefit but until some statistics and research shows it is of greater
benefit than alternatives I'm not convinced.

Darryl (Dassa) Lynch