Personal health record system coming soon

Ishara Jayawardane

Information in the form of hard copies will soon be replaced by a new programme, the personal health record system, a new medical innovation.

"Information in the form of hard copies will soon be replaced by this new programme," Sri Lanka Medical Association president Dr B J C Perera said.

"This programme is the connection between computer science and medicine. Medical information is stored on the web, a print out is taken and shown to the doctor. This is called the personal health record system.

"Information at present is stored as hospital records which are difficult to retrieve because the hospital does not store records in electronic form. Sometimes they can get lost or difficult to find," Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka president Professor Vajira H W Dissanayake said.

"With this new system, medical records are easily accessible. Sometimes when a doctor asks questions related to the patient's treatment history, the patient does not know how to answer. With the limited time the doctor has, sometimes the doctor cannot make a correct diagnosis," Sri Lanka personal health record system inventor Dr Deepal Wijesooriya said.