Control your own health information
Michael Bennett introduces Snug, a new way of managing your health records and your health.
OVER the course of a lifetime we visit countless different medical providers and specialists, and for nearly all of us our childhood GP is no longer the one we see.
These same providers and specialists have always recorded your appointment, or “episode of care” as the industry calls it – in the past it was on paper, but these days it’s in whatever medical software system they are running.
When you are referred to a specialist, your GP usually shares your notes via you and sealed in an envelope.
So, where’s the problem, I hear you say.
The problem is that as a patient we are always left with a fragmented health record. This results in inefficiencies or complications in our overall treatment.
How does the anaesthetist helping your dentist to pull out your wisdom tooth in Hobart know that you had a bad reaction after your knee operation in Melbourne?
Was it the anaesthetic, or was it the anti-emetic postoperative? I can’t remember … why?
How much money is wasted in the health system repeating blood tests for an evening hospital admission that were already requested by the GP that afternoon?
It is because of gaps such as these that we have developed a smartphone app called Snug.
Snug was developed in Tasmania to solve this problem and to help people take control of their health by allowing them to have their health information at their fingertips.
It is a comprehensive record of all your medications, prescriptions, allergies, conditions and appointments, together with your fitness device activity and medical device results in one place.
The system can also pull in all your My Health Record information, including vaccinations, GP and hospital encounters, medicines prescribed and dispensed, and pathology and radiology are on the way.
If you opted out of My Health Record for any reason, Snug is a great place to record and share your medical information.
If, for example, you are busy mum, you can record your child’s information in Snug, rather than trying to manage your child’s development milestones and immunisation schedule through the paper-based Blue Book.
Snug also enables those who need help managing their health to capture and share their information through the Circle of Care.
The Circle of Care feature allows you to give your loved ones or carers permission to access your health information to support you achieve the best outcomes.
The bottom line is that with Snug, individuals can now collect and monitor their own data and choose to share that information with health professionals in order to assist in interactions and inform their decisions.
Your data is protected to the same standard applied to the Australian Defence Force and housed here in Australia, so if you want better health outcomes and more cohesive understanding of your health records, you can download the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
IT IS BECAUSE OF GAPS SUCH AS THESE THAT WE DEVELOPED A SMARTPHONE APP CALLED SNUG. SNUG WAS DEVELOPED IN TASMANIA TO HELP PEOPLE TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR HEALTH BY ALLOWING THEM TO HAVE THEIR HEALTH INFORMATION AT THEIR FINGERTIPS.