Hello Everyone and welcome back for Week 3!

At the end of last week, I had discussed my observations and shortcomings of technology within the healthcare sector. I specifically voiced frustration about the medical record keeping. I felt that with the advances in smartphones, file sharing, privacy, and data management, that there should be a better way to organize a patient’s health record across multiple platforms and providers.

There are currently over 100 different electronic health record keeping systems in the United States. They vary in usage from large hospital systems to small, private practice offices. These different record keeping systems do not typically interact with one another, and the burden of keeping track of all of this information falls on the patient, since this information is privacy sensitive, and they are considered the “owner” of their health. Unorganized health records can lead to frustrations for both patients and health providers. Providers want access to all of the information—medical history, allergies, medications, test results etc. in order to treat patients effectively and thoroughly. In certain cases, they may want to compare notes with a prior provider’s assessment. However, this information must be obtained by way of the patient. The patient may find it difficult to ask for and obtain this information from their providers, and even when they do, it may be difficult to organize it in one central location. Furthermore, medical terminology can be confusing, and it is asking a lot of the patient to sort through these records for pertinent details.

So, what is one to do about this dilemma? Our capstone team of three members decided to combine our computer science and healthcare industry experience to answer this question. We decided to create a mobile phone application where a user could store their health records. They could input pertinent medical details into forms within the app, which could then be accessed at any time. They could upload documents (of test results, provider notes etc.) as well. They could even add in insurance information as well as well phone numbers for their local pharmacy or emergency contact. Our thought process with this app is that it could solve the problem of keeping a user’s medical information organized in one central location that is easily accessible at any time. We are excited to build out our app during this term and see this idea come to life.