At the beginning of September, PAMI, launched ‘Your History, Your Right’ an online platform on which professionals and patients can consult their pharmacological history. So far, five thousand users have registered, generating an average of 700 consults per day.
The main objective of the project is for the five million PAMI members to take charge of their own healthcare information, so they can access it wherever and and whenever they like. At the moment, the system only contains user data, the medications they were prescribed and dates they were dispensed and the generic name, presentation and type of product delivered.
To preserve the confidentiality of the information stored, this new tool operates with three levels of security:
1. Minimum: The member must register, enter their data and answer five questions relating to the services they have received recently to verify their identity. Then they will have access to and be able to interact with the last three months of their medical records.
2. Medium: the user must collect a card with a key from a PAMI office as the system will then ask them to enter the figures found on the card. In this case they will be able to consult their history for the past six months.
3. Maximum: This involves two-step authentication. First the affiliate must have a mobile device with an internet connection to download an app – whenever they wish to enter the system, they must link the device to their account by reading a QR or numerical code. Then, once the app generates a validation code, the member will be able to access all the data in their history since 2007 – when PAMI started to digitalize its information.
Once on the platform, users will be able to access the list of medications dispensed and apply search filters to find a specific medication by generic name, commercial name, date, or laboratory, among other options.
Once a medication has been selected, the user will be able to interact with it in the following ways:
1. Details: This section displays the specifications of the medication, the sale price, how much the member saved with their PAMI discount and information about the pharmacy from where it was bought.
2. Alert: This option makes it possible to send a notification about any errors in the history.
3. Positive or negative evaluation: With this option, the user can share their opinion of the product, the pharmacy where they bought it, the doctor who prescribed it and their personal treatment from the Institute.
Meanwhile, healthcare professionals will also be able to access the pharmacological history of their patients, as long as they have their consent. To guarantee this, when the member visits the surgery, they will show the doctor their key card so that when the provider enters the system, they can enter the two figures requested by the platform. The entry made by the professional is a single event at the moment of the visit and the key changes with each access attempt.
«»This tool facilitates communication between the patient and their doctor, and also the different professionals who treat the same user, because they don’t know what the others are prescribing. Now they will be able to avoid undue pharmacological interactions,»» said Mariana Iriarte, the head of the project, at the Argentine Congress of Health Informatics (CAIS).
At the moment, the only information that PAMI stores with this tool is related to medications dispensed, but the intention is to gradually include all the information that has been digitalized: medical services, procedures carried out, social contributions and supplies delivered. «»We will begin with this shortly,»» Iriarte announced.
In the future an electronic health record will be incorporated, as will a medication alerts service that will provide notifications to the member and a relative when a prescription or bureacratic procedure is due. «»These tools are another step in the Institute’s policy to continue providing the greatest transparency and access to information,»» the PAMI representative concluded.
