Dr. Henry Plummer was a diversified genius. He was a physician, scientist, and engineer. One of his significant contributions to clinical practice is the implementation of a unified medical record system in Mayo Clinic. The medical records of the same patient were always kept in one location, in chronological order. That was in 1907, and the first patient record was created on July 1.
113 years later, we are building electronic medical record systems, trying hard to unify medical record numbers for the same patient across clinics, hospitals, cities, health systems, countries, and regions.
We are now trying to connect and integrate patients’ information from all perspectives, including clinical conditions, health status, social determinants, objective data given by laboratories, modalities, devices, and subjective feelings, personal preferences about how we want to be taken care of.
In the near future, everyone is possibly going to be accompanied by a ‘data buddy’ knowing more about ‘Who I Am’.