By: Jeremy Smith,
PITO responds
Issue: BCMJ,
vol. 51, No. 10, December 2009,
Page 425 Letters
I would like to thank Dr Courtemanche for his reply. The patient’s medical record should certainly be considered as such, as it is by law. Achieving more coordinated and patient-centred care requires this way of looking at the medical record. Otherwise we will have simply made the old paper record electronic and missed many of the available benefits.
Physicians across the province are taking a variety of different approaches to supporting precisely this way of thinking, particularly through the PITO Community of Practice initiatives, and through efforts to enable personal health records which are held by the patients themselves.
The various approaches have unique strengths and challenges, but all seek to achieve the goals Dr Courtemanche references. We look forward to reporting on preliminary results from these approaches in future editions of the BCMJ.
While much of the health care system remains in silos, I think Dr Courtemanche would be quite encouraged by the work of many of his colleagues in this arena which will hopefully produce useful evidence and set the stage for wider adoption of these approaches.
—Jeremy Smith, PITO Program Director
Vancouver