That sounds great in theory. But how could we actually put it into practice? Who will build and maintain that personal health record system and where will the funding come from? Patients are generally unwilling to pay. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have tried to build PHRs to some extent but functionality and adoption have been limited. No one really trusts the government to maintain a big centralized repository of patient data. But decentralized systems are highly complex and prone to breakage. No one has really found a solution yet.
Health information exchanges and payers (insurers) have been doing great work lately to facilitate authorized providers sharing data with each other using standard formats such as the formats published by HL7. So that does at least prevent the need for duplicate lab tests and reduce the risk of medication errors.
Health information exchanges and payers (insurers) have been doing great work lately to facilitate authorized providers sharing data with each other using standard formats such as the formats published by HL7. So that does at least prevent the need for duplicate lab tests and reduce the risk of medication errors.