About Carlton

Carlton has been a member since July 14th 2010, and has created 5 posts from scratch.

Carlton's Bio

Carlton's Websites

This Author's Website is

Carlton's Recent Articles

“Smart” Health Medical Record?

published Monday, September 20th, 2010 at 8:44 am by

Think about this!

You have scheduled a visit to your doctor on the calendar of your smartphone. Sometime before the visit you may get an alert from your smartphone asking if you wish to send or update your health medical record with your doctor’s database.

This is a scenario that could be possible through developing technology referred to as “context-aware computing”. Actually, “context-aware computing” is an idea that has been discussed for two decades, but it is being advanced with the availability of smartphones.

Jordan Robertson of the Associated Press, published an article on msnbc.com titled “Mind-reading  Phones? The tech’s evolving there” introducing context-aware computing.

It is truly amazing what may be accomplished in future with a smartphone and the health medical record.

Posted in Smartphone Health | No Comments »

More On Smartphone Health Access

published Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 at 11:41 pm by

The Smartphone – A Meaningful Tool In Healthcare Delivery?

There was an interesting article on September 02, 2010 in the Pew Internet written by Amanda Lenhart and titled “Cell phones and American adults”. The article stated that “82% of American adults own a cell phone, Blackberry, iPhone or other device that is also a cell phone”.

Now what does that have to do with smartphone health access? The article seemed to point out a rapidly growing trend of cell phone acceptability and use by older adults. One may arguably extrapolate this use to indicate that adults may become more comfortable with mobile healthcare delivery. This could mean allowing digital access by healthcare professionals to the Personal Health Record (PHR) as part of online healthcare delivery.

Peter Hudson began his article on “Why Mobile Health Needs PHRs” in MobiHealthNews on June 25, 2010 with a notable statement. Peter indicated that PHRs present a great opportunity for consumers to control their healthcare data and “help deliver many meaningful solutions for managing their health”.

It is important to note that ease of access to the PHR may become critical in situations where the record-owner is on travel or needs emergency healthcare treatment.

Posted in Smartphone Health | No Comments »

Health Care Providers and Electronic Health Records

published Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 10:08 pm by

Should health care providers care about the implementation of the electronic health record?

In a previous post (see July 29 with the title “Personal Health Record”) there are some disadvantages mentioned in digitizing the health medical record.

From the perspective of the health care provider, earlier reasons to avoid pushing for electronic health records (EHR) included:

  • Cost – many records are still in paper format and will require much effort to digitize. Areas of concern included accuracy, privacy, secure storage, and backup storage.
  • Time – “time is money” of course, and it will take a long time to digitize the large amount of paper records still existing in hospitals, labs, doctors’ offices, etc.

However “times are changing” such that the healthcare provider may chose the path toward electronic health records (EHR). Here are some advantages or incentives:

  • In a news release dated July 13, 2010, Kathleen Sebelius (US Department of Health and Human Services) announced final rules to help improve Americans’ health, safety, and reduce costs through increased use of electronic health records.
  • Processing insurance claims will be faster and more accurate.
  • As much as $27 billion may be available from the Federal Government over the next 10 years toward implementation.
  • HP of Palo Alto, CA announced on July 13, 2010 a new program supporting the quick adoption of EHR among hospitals and doctors.

Electronic Health Records (digital health medical records) can help control health costs if the disadvantages or negative issues are controlled or eliminated.

Posted in Online Health | No Comments »

Personal Health Record

published Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 11:00 am by

Personal Health Record, Anyone?

On specific visits to medical offices (for example, your doctor, a hospital, a lab), you may be asked to create or update information on a paper form. This information is part of your personal health record (PHR).

Would it not be convenient if all of the information that exists at various medical offices was consolidated in digital form and easily available on demand?

Some advantages of a consolidated digital record are:

  • The owner (you) have some control over its location and access.
  • Updating the information can be easily and accurately done. Unclear information and errors in the paper record can have serious consequences in patient care.
  • Owners can easily carry records anywhere they go. For example, the record can be stored on a USB flash drive.

Some disadvantages or challenges are also noted:

  • As with any stored digital information, some form of reliable backup is necessary in case of loss. Who provides this backup and how?
  • What structure may be used for storing and processing records? Ideally a uniform structure accepted locally and even globally would be desirable. Would standard bodies and government regulations have to be in place to achieve agreement in implementation?
  • How can issues of privacy and security be adequately addressed?
  • The uncertainties in record implementation will affect the cost of an acceptable solution. What is the cost to produce the PHR?

It appears that there will be many hurdles to overcome to get to widespread use of the PHR.

Posted in Online Health | No Comments »

Smartphone Health Access

published Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 6:58 pm by

How cool would it be to have access to health medical records by smartphone?

Companies have been and continue to take action in this direction. On Tuesday July 27, 2010 in manufacturing.net there is an article “Qualcomm Announces Project to Enable 3G Health Care Access For Rural Japanese Communities” on this topic.

The article mentions a project that allows doctors to receive critical health information from 300 remote local residents through a 3G wireless network. The point here is that the residents are in areas that lack emergency health care services and can follow doctors’ advice on their wireless devices.

This is not new online health strategy in that other companies have had similar implementation plans. On June 25, 2008, Matt Hamblen wrote an article “Insurer offers mobile health records” in Computerworld. He stated that Blue Cross of Northeast Pennsylvania rolled out a secure mobile personal health record application that gave customers untethered access to their medical information.

Smartphone devices certainly make personal communications convenient, but they can be an immense step forward in helping doctors in online patient health care.

Posted in Smartphone Health | No Comments »