Great Ormond Street Hospital Transfers Patient's Records Using 'Medical Facebook'

Sade Laja | The Guardian | September 16, 2011

Gastroenterology department uses online tool Patients Know Best to transfer a patient's medical history to another hospital

Great Ormond Street children's hospital trust said it has for the first time transferred the medical history of one of its patients to St Mark's hospital, Harrow, using online tool Patients Know Best, a patient controlled healthcare records system.

The patient concerned had a complex medical condition and a large team managing their treatment and needed to be moved to adult care at St Mark's because they had reached 18 years of age. Great Ormond Street said that without the new system, it would have to print out and post medical notes to the patient's new team, involving staff in re-keying or re-scanning information.

Using Patients Know Best, which works by a patient logging into the system in the same manner as Facebook and adding a doctor, the new clinical team at St Mark's were invited to be the patient's "friends" and were granted immediate access to their whole medical history...