Surescripts-HealthVault Linkup Provides Prescription Data -- If Folks Can Understand It
While healthcare providers have not stampeded to provide personal health information (PHI) to consumers who have personal health records (PHRs) on Microsoft (MSFT) HealthVault, the web platform is giving its customers access to a steadily increasing stream of lab and medication data. This information could help people manage their own health and provide more detailed medical histories as they move through various healthcare settings. The question is whether people will use it.
Surescripts, the company that connects physician offices online with pharmacies, announced an agreement with HealthVault that should substantially increase the amount of PHI available to patients. Consumers can now ask the pharmacies in the Surescripts network to upload their medication histories to their personal health records on HealthVault and update them daily. The Surescripts network includes about 85 percent of the pharmacies in the U.S., and about half of them-roughly 26,000 drugstores -- are capable of supplying lists, not only of prescription drugs, but also of over-the-counter medications purchased by their customers.
In addition, Surescripts includes RxHub, which aggregates pharmacy claims information from pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) and health plans. RxHub claims to have prescription drug histories on about two-thirds of all patients in the U.S. But those community medication lists, which physicians can download through electronic prescribing programs, are not involved in the deal with HealthVault. According to a Surescripts spokesman, this is probably because consumers are used to dealing with pharmacies, not PBMs.
To be sure, Surescripts is not the first organization to supply prescription drug information directly to consumers. Health plans such as Aetna and United provide current med lists to members on their consumer websites. And on HealthVault itself, both CVS and Walgreens, the nation's largest pharmacy chains, offer customers data on their prescription drugs. But the addition of Surescripts will greatly increase access to medication histories.
Meanwhile, Quest Diagnostics also offers lab results to people who have HealthVault PHRs. Some healthcare organizations and physician groups that use secure online messaging also invite patients to pick up their lab results online.
Whether or not this will lead to an upsurge in consumer use of PHRs is uncertain. Millions of consumers have had access to claims-based PHRs from health plans for years, yet only a small portion of members have taken advantage of them. Perhaps this will always be the case, because healthy people have less interest in access to their PHI than sick people do, and the vast majority are healthy.
Still, a third of Americans have one or more of the seven most common chronic diseases. Online access to lab results and medication lists could help these people manage their care better and avoid redundant tests. They could also enable physicians to make better decisions in an emergency. But, considering the low health literacy in the U.S., many patients will have a hard time understanding what the data in their PHRs means.
In the end, the physician-patient relationship is still the core of healthcare. No matter how much information patients have, it's what they and their caregivers do with it that makes the difference in their health.
Image supplied courtesy of Picasaweb.
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