New York-Presbyterian Hospital, whose centers and clinics account for 20 percent of all health care provided in New York, is the first large institution to move beyond the pilot stages of online digital records, a New York Times article reports.

New York-Presbyterian is beginning to offer consumer-controlled health records for patients this week.

Although online medical records have been available for years, a nearly non-existent percentage of Americans have them today, mainly because getting useful patient and medical information into personal health records into an online form is time-consuming, mind-numbing and error prone, the article stated.  However, Microsoft and Google have announced partnerships within the past few months with large health care providers, including Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente to overcome these barriers.  

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a heart surgeon at New York-Presbyterian said in the New York Times that “one significant benefit [of online personal health records] is the mobility of information and ease of access to an online personal health record.

Moving from papers-in-files to a digitized office is just one of the many scores of changes transforming our society. AllMed, an independent review organization, is online, too. AllMed’s Web site offers an array of resources that, much like online personal health records, eases the painstaking task of research and discovery; we compile all the information you need to keep it at the ease of your fingertips…literally.  

To read the full article, click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/technology/companies/06health.html?ref=health