PATIENTS who visit IPN Medical Centres across Australia will soon be able to access their own medical data - including medication lists - via a smartphone app.
IPN, which operates in about 180 practices across Australia servicing 2 million patients, said the integration of the Australian-developed MediTracker app would give live access to health summaries, while medication lists could be shown to pharmacists to help avoid drug interactions.
IPN Medical Centres ceo Gerard Foley said "the app will be most useful to patients with a chronic disease diagnosis because it allows them to navigate their care plan".
Non-sensitive pathology results that have been seen by the GP, such as cholesterol and HbA1c, will also be listed in the app, along with allergies, immunisations, measurements and more.
Patients with more than one regular GP will only be able to download summaries from the practice they nominate when they set up the app, Foley said.
"It's part of the future for us...we are moving into an era when there has to be increased sharing of information," he added.
Practices using MedicalDirector, Best Practice or Zedmed can also offer MediTracker to their patients.
MediTracker claims to collect more information than the current My Health Record being implemented by the government.
For example, with My Health Record any shared health summary uploaded by a GP is only available as a static PDF document, and is not updated unless the GP chooses to upload another summary.
MediTracker, by contrast, is updated whenever a GP updates the medical record at the practice "so will always contain the most up to date medications for the patient" the software firm said.
The app is charged via a subscription fee of $5.99 annually.
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