A Western Sydney GP has built and released his own patient side app which he says bypasses the issues with MyHR
Amid the $375m funding announcement for the MyHR and a swathe of tech vendor electronic medical record patient app plays, a Western Sydney GP has built and released his own patient side app which he says bypasses any issues with the MyHR and is a simple and practical answer to the issues some patients face with keeping a record of their medical condition.
The mICE (Medical in Case of Emergency) app is available for download now on the iPhone app store, which doesn’t talk to either the MyHR or the patient management system on a doctor’s desk.
Creator, Dr Adrian Sheen, who is a practising GP at the Mulgoa Medical Centre in Mulgoa and a lecturer in general practice at the University of Sydney, says that this app allows patients to “easily and securely manage their history and medical information”.
He says there is demand for something simple that is easy for a patient to use and doctor-friendly and that there are too many issues currently with connecting to either the MyHR or the doctor’s patient management system.
“I am in an area where the MyHR is being trialled. The only patients that have asked about it are those wanting to opt out,” he told TMR.
Regarding practice management-based health records for patients, which are starting to emerge through the patient management system vendors and other groups like Precedence Health and MediTracker, he says, “I have often found practice computer systems are not culled and contain old information (i.e. what medication you are on) and irrelevant information”.
mICE “is for patients to put in their own information”, he said.
mICE is a is password protected app that keeps a record of current medical conditions, past history, medications, allergies, immunisations and blood group. It records details of treating doctors, appointments, as well as information about health insurance, and Medicare number.
If the iPhone owner is unconscious or unable to answer first responder questions, an emergency contact number can be displayed on the lock screen along with the most important medical conditions and allergies.
It has been available on the iPhone App Store since last Wednesday.
Correction: The animal in the above photo was originally mislabelled as a mouse. It is, in fact, a hamster.  Thanks to our zoologically inclined Twitter followers for bringing this grievous error to our attention.
