How to Share Medical Patient Records in Community Medical Information Network

Abstract

 We developed an electronic patient record (EPR) sharing system called EMInet in Matsudo City, Japan where 42 medical facilities are connected. The network is composed of a server machine located at a computer center which is connected to each medical facility with the NTT Local IP network (private network) using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) so that the medical staff can look into and input the record in the Web browser. Firstly, a family physician and patient decide the facilities where EPR is shared and only the staff of those facilities permitted by the patient can access into the patient’s EPR. Secondly, the patient can ask to access into his EPR in other facilities with his e-card to identify himself. By using this system, it works well especially in the home care relationship between doctors and nurses beyond the immediate facility. Some data in one’s medical record include sensitive and private matters only necessary for the home doctor. From our experience, it became evident that it is not practical to transfer and open all the contents of one’s original record to the EPR sharing system.