Mediformatica - The Medical Informatics Portal

Patients in the US will be able to access their medical records via iPod, thanks to a new version of a healthcare system.
Records for Living's HealthFrame system will enable users to transfer emergency contact information, allergy and medication lists and other health-based information to their iPods at the click of a button, the company states.

The HealthFrame attachments feature allows users to add any file of their choosing to the popular Apple MP3 players, facilitating the creation of fully comprehensive, portable medical records that can be kept on one's person at all times.

Records for Living also believe that the popularity of the iPod will mean many doctors are already familiar with the device, saving them potentially vital minutes when trying to access medical records. The iPod's popularity with younger age groups was also a key factor in the system's design, according to Records for Living founder and president Simone Pringle.

"In the US, teenagers are a group facing medical problems due to lifestyle effects. We realised that most of them do carry iPods on them and use them on a daily basis," Ms Pringle told website E-Health Insider.

"They don't carry USB keys on them outside of school and you can't make them carry things they don't want to, so using an iPod to carry medical information on seemed perfect," she added.

HealthFrame is designed to manage personal health records in a clear and easily understandable format. The new version, HealthFrame 2.1, provides an improved version of the service and is attracting interest from UK companies.

Record for Living cites several experts who attest to the value of maintaining a record of personal health, including Dr Richard Peters, chairman of ASTM E31 Healthcare Informatics.

"Data interoperability, supported by Records For Living's HealthFrame™ 2.1 and the freely distributed HealthFrame™ Viewer, will have a strong positive impact on health care quality and patient safety - a key role for personal health records," commented Dr Peters.

The system also enables patients to provide chronological histories of their illnesses, Ms Pringle revealed.

"We used iPod Notes functions to create a system that could pull together medical records and compress them to fit the screen of a standard iPod. The notes are composed into a hierarchical status and so if they need to go into hospital, then they can give staff their notes using their beloved iPods!," she said.