Offcial Records

I am penning a few posts on different perspectives of medical records. Which would you rather be? The author of a blog post, or the author of a book?

Which would you prefer: A doctor whose trolled the internet or one that has a pretty solid library of reference books?

Which would you rather have: Medical records on paper or in a computer file?

I happen to hate paperwork. I don't subscribe to paper newspapers, or magazines. I do all of my banking online and hate tax forms.

Oddly, when I deal with the most precious piece of information about myself, I prefer to see it on paper. I love to see the big thick folder with paper from different sources, with hand written notes, all written with concern.

Of course, it is a false dichotomy to say that we must have either electronic or printed records. One can print out data files and digitize forms.

The paradigm I would prefer is one where there were printed official files and electronic versions of the data that could accessed as needed.

Where should the files be stored?

Traditionally (prior to the days of big insurance) the data was stored with the primary care physician. The clerical work is the waste of a good doctor. So, it really would make sense to have a class of clerical workers who store the data. We could interface with this person, then leverage that person's knowledge to help interface with the world.