LOS ANGELES, CA — (Marketwired) — 11/25/13 — In the following blog, (OTCQB: MMRF) CEO Robert H. “Bob” Lorsch tells the story of a patient who averted surgery with the help of a (PHR). In this case, he was the patient and the PHR is , a secure online resource for storing a family-s medical records and other important documents in one safe and convenient location with the ability to access the information — including potentially life-saving health data — 24/7 using the Internet. Lorsch, known for communicating the value of maintaining a Personal Health Record to others, continues to be living proof. From his position as founder and CEO of MMRGlobal, his story is a testimonial to the power — and self-empowerment — of a PHR to improve care, reduce healthcare costs and help save lives. This blog and others can also be viewed at :
Last Thursday, I was admitted to the hospital with pain in my mid-section and an elevated white count. I had been experiencing mild symptoms of pain in the stomach for more than a week, and when the pain started keeping me up three nights in a row I called my Internist. He referred me to a gastro specialist whom I saw on Monday, November 18th. The doctor gave me a complete workup which included taking a rush “STAT” blood draw. After the appointment I was sent home with two antibiotics and instructions to wait for his call. At 9:00 that same evening the doctor called and told me I had a significantly elevated white count and to immediately go for an emergency CT Scan.
I told the specialist that would not be possible as I was traveling to Chicago early the next morning for scheduled meetings where attorneys from around the country were gathering and we were not meeting at an imaging center. I explained that this was an important and time-sensitive meeting and only something like removing my appendix would keep me away. So unless he could tell me I was having an appendicitis attack, I was going to Chicago.
As it turned out, the only reason I am able to write this blog and appear on Fox News all weekend and again in a special segment later today is because my Personal Health Record account kept me out of an operating room.
So since my diagnosis was not definitively an appendicitis attack… despite the pain (and fever) I was at LAX at 4:30 AM and on a 5:40 flight to Chicago with the Company-s patent attorney (who did not have a copy of my advance directives).
We arrived at the meeting in Chicago, which by that time was the only thing I could feel good about. Then, I drove from the suburb of Deerfield to the Chicago Loop for an MMRGlobal investor dinner, returning to the Airport Hilton in time for a few hours of sleep and the morning flight that would get me back to the office for more than half a day of work on Wednesday.
However, that is not exactly what the universe had in store for me. Instead, the ongoing fever and pain made me realize I needed the CT Scan before going to the office. So I scheduled the procedure from the in-flight Internet. After the three-hour imaging procedure I went home to wait for the results.
At about 6:00 PM that night I received a call from the specialist telling me to get myself to the hospital Emergency Room with specific instructions to be admitted, adding to both my wife Kira and I that it was a life or death situation. The specialist also contacted a surgeon to be my admitting physician and I was in a hospital bed the next morning, which was now Thursday. I had been told that I would be out in 2 days and I had an infection that that would simply be treated with IV antibiotics.
I quickly learned that now everything was an emergency. My CT Scan was done outside the hospital so when I checked into the hospital no one had a copy, only a verbal report from the specialist. However, when a surgical team came to my room to prep me that night, they told me I was not headed to an IV Line but to surgery. Then I started asking more questions. Based on what I learned, I told them that surgery was anything but acceptable. I made it very clear that I did not want surgery and requested a hospital radiologist render a second opinion on my CT Scan.
The problem was it was not at the hospital. Because I know how important it is to ask for a disc of the procedure whenever a patient leaves a radiologist, I had one with me. But I did not have the report. I 911-d the specialist, who emailed the report to me. The hospital had no way to receive email from a patient, especially at what was now 7:00 at night. However, every Nurse-s Station can receive a fax.
So using my personal account, I uploaded the email to my inbox, moved the report to my radiology file and faxed it directly from my Personal Health Record to the Nurse-s Station.
Records and disc in hand, the surgical team went to a radiologist in the hospital and they all read the film together. Forty-five minutes later, the team canceled putting me under the knife and started the IV. Clearly, without a patient-controlled copy of my , I would not have able to be on Fox & Friends Saturday morning discussing the latest on and back in my office today. Instead, I would have been in recovery, having had an unnecessary surgery.
Apparently, one set of radiologists from outside the hospital had given one opinion and the radiologist in the hospital another. Fortunately, the hospital won.
Surgery canceled, and 4 bags of IV antibiotics later, it was off to .
The best news is of course that I didn-t need surgery, and that the influx of antibiotics seems to have resolved the problem. I walked out of the hospital feeling great and, as a matter of fact, several people have said I-ve never looked better.
Had I not had a Personal Health Record I would not be writing this blog pain-free. This Thanksgiving, Kira and I have a lot to be thankful for in that MyMedicalRecords kept me from having an unnecessary operation.
If you haven-t already done so, I encourage you to use this holiday season to open a Personal Health Record account at and collect all your family-s important information when you are gathered together .
Happy Thanksgiving!
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MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records (“PHRs”) and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, retail pharmacies, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user-s account. The Company-s professional offering, , is designed to give physicians- offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients through an integrated patient portal. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId/Specifid vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin-s lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit . View demos and video tutorials of the Company-s products and services at .
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