

Ask HN: Managing and sharing personal health records? - hauget

So I&#x27;ve been in Germany for a while now and the other day had to visit a doctor for the first time in a few years. I was a bit surprised when one of the nurses approached me to fill out a paper form with some basic information about myself: name, phone number, medications, past history, etc. Why was I surprised? Because we&#x27;re in 2015 and the way this should work is that someone should be able to scan my medical card (which has an electronic chip in it BTW) and get access to whatever information I&#x27;ve chosen to share. I can&#x27;t even imagine how hard this is for the elderly to manage...<p>What are your thoughts on this? Do you personally use anything to manage your own health records(e.g. Microsoft&#x27;s Health Vault)? I&#x27;m thinking something should exist that is like Snapchat\Dropbox for medical records where I can choose what to give access to and to whom for whatever period is necessary. Cheers!
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johnnyg
HIPAA. The regulators mean well and the health data security situation is poor
but the penalties and overhead it introduces mean you either have an awful
locked down system no one wants to use or a "system" that uses fax or paper
"tech" so old there are no regulations against it.

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hauget
Can I request digital records from them in case I move outside the US? Or will
each individual have to scan/classify data on their own?

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johnnyg
They must by law provide you a copy of your records but they may charge you a
processing fee for retrieving hard copies and sending them to you.

