Prepare for emergency access to important health information.

In emergencies, often people panic, or worse, may be unconscious. In these situations patient safety is severely impacted. The ability to accurately remember medication regimens, allergies, physicians’ names, and so forth are severely limited. Family members may not be present and even knowing who or how to contact them may be hours away when crucial decisions have to be made.

If you authorize it, MyHealthArchive gives the physicians and hospitals emergency access to your medical record whether you live near or far. If you have been maintaining your personal health record, your information is accessible and does not need to be remembered by you. Your contact information including family, friends, physicians and hospitals are made available very quickly, so your information can be used to help you in your time of urgent need. You can also store important documents which can be lost or destroyed when exposed to the elements.

Your emergency may not occur when you are at home. If you are at some other office or hospital, even if out of the country, your information can be more readily and quickly obtained to use it to best treat you.

How can MyHealthArchive help in disaster preparedness?

In simple terms, an emergency is a disaster of one, while a hurricane, fire, explosion, or terrorist threat is a disaster of many. All of the benefits of MyHealthArchive noted above for an emergency apply, but other benefits emerge. In Katrina, whole medical care systems were wiped out – there were no medical records left for many people. The result was chaos and many problems with providing care. MyHealthArchive safely stores your information away from the disaster site so it can be retrieved by EMS, physicians and hospitals. Reunification with your family is aided by having pre-positioned your contact information in your personal health record. Read more about how MyHealthArchive integrates with DisasterLink.