Even for those of us who have maintained one consistent primary care physician for our entire adult lives, there can be challenges to the coordination of health information. For example, let’s say your primary care physician admits you to the hospital for a bout of pneumonia and she is the only physician treating you during the hospital stay. The information collected on you in the hospital stays in the hospital, not your physician’s office. Your physician will have access to the information, but the location of that information is the hospital. Some hospitals do provide their medical staff with access to scanned or imaged medical records of their patients via the Internet. While computerized access makes it easier for your physician to view your record, there are not yet any hospitals allowing patients computerized access to their own health information.

It is possible to rely upon the different physicians who may be treating you, your child or parent to communicate and coordinate all information. And most do a very good job of this. But the bottom line is that virtually no physician will have the same level of interest in keeping every piece of your health information as up to date and accessible as you may want or need it to be. Maintaining a comprehensive set of health information about you, in one location, accessible to you (and anyone you want to share the information with) is no one’s responsibility. No one, that is, except you.