Patients will be able to access their medical information online and share this with a doctor of their choice through a new service being rolled out at the end of this month.

It will make a huge change to primary care

Called ‘My Health’, the service will start by providing hospital discharge summary reports and go on to include lab results, radiology reports and medicine entitlement information.

The innovative aspect of this service is that patients can tag any registered doctor (like social networking sites) – as many as they want – to view their results and guide them in analysing the information.

“The key to all this is going to be the patient. If the patient doesn’t want Doctor X to know his results, he can ensure this. The patient may open or close the door to any doctor,” Health Minister Joe Cassar told The Sunday Times.

The service, which will be officially launched on Saturday during the ministry’s Open Day, has been months in the making with an investment of €350,000.

“My Health is one of the first such projects in the EU, which is going to go live very soon. Other member states are still discussing this, while the UK is planning to roll out this system by 2015,” Dr Cassar added.

He stressed, without mentioning names, that this announcement was not a kneejerk reaction towards any statements made recently and insisted theproject has been ongoing for months.

In the past days, Dr Cassar was one of the ministers who came under fire from Nationalist backbencher Franco Debono who hit out at his performance and criticised him for abandoning primary care reform.

Dr Cassar would only say that even though the reform had to go back to the drawing board, primary care was never abandoned and numerous initiatives were introduced.

“My Health will make a huge change to primary care – it is going to be an interface between what happens in the office of the family doctor and patients’ households, and will finally link GPs to the health service at Mater Dei Hospital,” he said.

Ministry chief information officer Arthur Gerada explained that the portal created for this service enables citizens to go online through their e-id to retrieve their records and give access to as many doctors as they liked.

“This will empower patients to better manage their health. For those who are not internet savvy, there will also be the option to delegate responsibility of handling your records to another person,” Mr Gerada assured.

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