Academy Initiative Calls for Action on Availability of CCRs

One largely unrecognized aftereffect of Hurricane Katrina has been the destruction of thousands of medical records belonging to patients needing immediate medical care. In recognition of this fact, the AAFP has established Project Continuity of Care to address the difficulties physicians face when trying to provide quality care to patients without the benefit of medical histories and medication lists.

The project's focus is to push for rapid progress on the establishment and use of portable personal health records -- called continuity of care records -- with the assistance of physicians, health information technology companies and the federal government.

A patient's CCR would contain all of his or her current relevant health information. Optimally, the patient, the patient's physician and an outside repository would each hold an electronic copy of every patient's CCR.

"We have received many reports from family physicians as far away as Massachusetts and California who are hampered in their efforts to provide high-quality care for Katrina victims because they do not have the patients' medical histories and medical lists," said AAFP President Mary Frank, M.D., of Mill Valley, Ca., in a Sept. 12 news release about the project. "This lack of access to key personal health information is both a hazard to patients and an impediment to the ability of physicians and other health care providers to deliver good-quality, effective and safe medical care," she said.

The project's three major goals:

Academy EVP Douglas Henley, M.D., said the time to act is now, before another crisis occurs. "Our aim with Project Continuity of Care is to provide physicians and other caregivers with access to this summary medical information when and where it is needed and to give patients the assurance they deserve that they won't suffer in an emergency because of lack of information about their personal illnesses or treatment plans."