Patients of GPs in Wellington’s Compass Primary Health Organisation (PHO) are the first to get to secure access to their health records via their mobile phones.
A mobile app for ManageMyHealth has been launched for both Apple and Android devices, designed to enable Compass patients in the Wellington region to communicate with their doctors in real time and to download personal health information.
ManageMyHealth is a secure personal health portal created by New Zealand-based health IT company Medtech Global, which allows healthcare providers to help individuals take a more active role in the management of their health and wellbeing.
Individuals can, for example, access appropriate patient medical records online, see health results such as lab tests, and engage electronically with their health care providers to support positive lifestyle changes.
Compass Health has contracted with Medtech to provide the patient portal to all interested practices in the Greater Wellington region.
“We welcome and are excited about the app version of the ManageMyHealth patient portal,” says Martin Hefford, CEO, Compass Health.
“It gives patients easy online access to their health information, as well as providing a secure interface for booking appointments and communicating with the GP team.
“We are pleased to be able to offer a patient portal that links directly to the shared care record and that will, in future, include a shared care plan capability.”
Going forward, local GP Dr Richard Medlicott is enthusiastic about the use of the mobile app for the portal.
“My practice has about 2000 patients on the patient portal,” Dr Medlicott adds.
“Increasingly the world is mobile and smart device enabled. Having this available on the smart phone is a good step forward.”
Medtech chairman Vino Ramayah believes the app is a further enhancement of Medtech’s Manage My Health product, which creates an electronic connection between doctor and patient.
“The new app makes it possible for people to access their health record and communicate with their health care providers with full privacy from their mobile phones and in much the same way as they now organise their financial lives,” Ramayah adds.
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“We’d like to see all New Zealanders have secure access to their own medical records, both through their computers and their mobile phones if they wish.
“For PHOs and their practices, ManageMyHealth increases healthcare efficiencies and administration savings through functionality such as online appointments and electronic medical records management, secure messaging and appointment reminders. All of this can now be done on mobile phones.”
Medtech has developed other technological advancements such as VitelMed, which provides audio-visual telehealth connections with multiple diagnostic device integration and will enable home-based care.
At present, Vitelmed is already deployed in the US, Australia and India and Ramayah says it will be in the New Zealand market soon.