How to Take Charge of Your Medical Records and Why It's Important

Patients have a lot to gain by getting access to their health information. They just need to know where to get it—and what to do with it.

It’s your health. So it’s time you took control of all the information about it.

That’s the message that a growing number of patient advocates are trying to spread to American health-care consumers.

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For most people, of course, it’s all too easy to simply leave their health records in the hands of doctors and hospitals. But that’s a big mistake, the advocates argue. First, it gives doctors too much power over information that is vital to patients, and it creates opportunities for errors. Perhaps more important, it keeps patients from using the information themselves for their own benefit.

“For consumers to start requesting and using their health information will be a game-changer for the health-care system,” says Christine Bechtel, a consultant for the National Partnership for Women and Families who spearheads the Get My Health Data campaign to get patients to ask doctors for their records. “Once we unlock the data, there’s an enormous amount we can do with it.”

A Mobile Solutions app works with Microsoft 
HealthVault to let users store and share X-rays 
and other scans. Photo: Medical Image Vault, 
MobileSolutions.gr

Indeed, taking charge of your own records helps circumvent “data lock”—where one doctor’s records system can’t talk with another’s, or when hospitals make a stink about transferring files to competing providers. By obtaining their records, you can serve as your own data hub and give out information when you are consulting specialists, seeking second opinions or shopping for less expensive care.

Controlling your data can also be a matter of safety, advocates argue. Studies show that 400,000 Americans die every year beause of medical errors, including 80,000 because doctors don’t have in hand the information they need. “This is an epidemic we can cure if patients can carry that information everywhere they go,” says Bettina Experton, CEO of health-care software maker Humetrix.

A big impetus for these advocacy efforts: electronic health records. Spurred by $30 billion in incentives, doctors and hospitals have digitized millions of Americans’ medical files so they can be more easily analyzed and shared, with the goal of improving care and cutting costs. But it’s often been easier for government regulators, data-crunchers and bill collectors to access information on patients than it has been for patients themselves.

To be sure, not everyone thinks it’s a good idea for patients to take charge of their records. Some doctors, for instance, worry that patient files often contain confusing data that could make people needlessly upset or require time-consuming explanations.

Meanwhile, some people are too sick, too busy or too anxious to want to monitor their health data closely.

But a growing number of Americans are eager for access to their own records as they travel from doctor to doctor, or look for answers on their own. And more physicians say the more information patients have, the more invested they will be in their own care.

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