Medicare program touts electronic health records

A new pilot program will allow Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona to choose a private vendor to compile and maintain their health record information electronically.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, announced the selection Wednesday of four online vendors to offer the personal health records service starting in early January. The pilot program is for Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona and Utah.

The four companies are Google Health, HealthTrio, NoMoreClipboard.com and PassportMD. Medicare will provide health information from its claims database, and then individual beneficiaries can enter and maintain data.

Each company has privacy and security standards to protect the information transmitted and stored in the personal health records.

Medicare will transfer up to two years of the beneficiary's claims to the individual record if requested by the beneficiary.

"It will provide information and tools that will empower consumers to manage their health better," Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said in a statement. "Importantly, the pilot provides beneficiaries with a choice of products to meet their individual needs."

David Sayen, regional administrator of Medicare/Medicaid services, said the personal health record can provide many advantages to beneficiaries.

"Let's say I live here in Arizona and I'm on vacation in Philadelphia, and I get hurt and go to the emergency room," he said. "They have a computer and the Internet, and they can bring up my medical history. It's not full on and complete like a doctor's medical record, but still you have the things that were done to you in the last year, maybe the medications that were prescribed, whether you had the flu shot, etc."

Depending on specific products offered by the vendors, beneficiaries may be able to authorize links to other personal electronic information such as pharmacy data.

The records also may offer links to tools that help consumers manage their health such as wellness programs for tracking diet and exercise, information about drugs and medical devices, health education information, and applications to detect potential medication interactions.

Beneficiaries can elect to allow family members, health care providers, or whomever they choose to have access to their record.

"It's a very important caregiver tool," Sayen said. "It's a tool for working-age folks who are caring for their parents. It's also there for the baby boomers who are just starting to come into our program."