Unlimited Access Episode #3
In this episode of Unlimited Access, Shannon elaborates on the complexity of medical records and how MyHealthHatch will address those challenges.
Transcript
[00:00:00]
Levi: Hi, this is Unlimited Access. My name is Levi and I’m with Shannon Aylesworth, founder and CEO of MyHealthHatch. So Shannon.
Shannon: Hi.
Levi: Hi
Shannon: Good morning.
Levi: Good morning. Kind of morning. Yeah. Big problem in the industry in the medical world is that people do not understand their medical records. And I know for me, if I were to go open them up I don’t think I understand any of it.
[00:00:30]
Levi: I guess I can read, but even doctors, handwritten notes are hard to read sometimes. So that’s a big problem. Tell, me more about what’s going on in the industry.
Shannon: So medical records the way the EMR, the electronic medical record system was built was that it was intended to be a communication platform in between doctors and nurses and anybody else in the medical community. Those people are trained, educated in medical terminology.
The rest of us are not. So what happens. While they want to expose the records to patients, becasue we all want our data. It’s in [00:01:00] medical terminology. So we don’t understand. And I went through this with my mom. Couldn’t understand what WBC was or lipid panel. So the big fear. The medical community was to expose records that people don’t understand, oh my God, my numbers are way outta whack.
[00:01:30]
And so they have over time, really started to give you that data. We all get that, that data we all get to have that data. But they try to add education to it. The challenge is, again, the systems weren’t built for that. So really what happens is there’s a disconnect between what the medical providers can see and understand and what the patient understands and how do I take action?
And if the doctors want you to take action on your. How do you do that? If you don’t understand what you’re reading, but their systems don’t allow ’em to do that. It’s really a challenge for most people. It’s “Hey, I want my records,” but you really can’t do anything with them. You just run around and give ’em to the next doctor.
Levi: There’s this idea like when I get my medical records, I feel like I’m in possession of something. Really valuable.
Shannon: Yes. Yes.
Levi: But it’s not valuable to me, but it affects me.
Shannon: Yes.
[00:02:00]
Levi: How will people get value out of their medical records? So say my medical records are now in my possession.
Shannon: Yeah.
Levi: Today it’s not valuable to me to some extent, but it can be what’s that look like?
Shannon: Yeah. So what’s really cool about what’s going on in medicine is they know more and more about our bodies and what they need us to do as patients is put the pieces together, the puzzle pieces, what you.
[00:02:30]
What is six out of 10 adults have a chronic illness. The chronic illness is not gonna kill you, but it is gonna affect your quality of life. And in order for them to help you improve your quality of life, you need to understand what triggers you need to put into play in your own life. So for me I have got issues and I’m always looking at okay, what comes out of my numbers is important to my health.
So I can then zero in on what I need to. To feel better and to improve on my health. And so how do you understand those records look at what’s important to you and the only person who knows that really is you, they see the patient advocate for the patient. We all go in and we see a doctor and we forget every question we’ve ever had.
[00:03:00]
But being able to arm with that information on how, what does it mean what’s important to you? What’s going on with your life when you go into the doctor and they diagnose you and they do this like little it’s like a, process of elimination. They want you to be able to do that as well.
So that’s what the goal is of giving you the records and then giving you the information on top. The problem is that information on top to help you interpret that to say, oh, today I don’t feel well because this is going on. My sugar’s too high. All these things that are going on in, in, our health right now the healthcare crisis is [00:03:30] how do we make sure you have the information to understand what is important to you?
That’s when it becomes valuable people collecting their records is valuable to help the next doctor when you’re in acute situation. But in a chronic situation, lots of autoimmune diseases that need daily work.
Levi: So it says to me like what we’re working on at MyHealthHatch is having that education in one spot.
So if I see lipid numbers on one side of my app, and I see here’s a long term trend of my blood pressure or whatever.
Shannon: Yeah.
[00:04:00]
Levi: I can click on that. And I don’t know how the app is functioning toward it yet, but there’s education. What does this really mean to you?
Shannon: Yeah. So what we’ll do is we’ll do a couple things.
One is, we’ll look at you’ll check the box and say interest. This is what I’m interested in, either as a caregiver or as a patient. Or I’m worried that I might have diabetes or I’m worried that I’ve got this in my family, so we’ll go, okay. Tailor what education you want. We’ll go out. We’ll we’re gonna, we’re almost gonna do an algorithm search engine to go find credible sources instead of Google.com.
[00:04:30]
Go get credible sources around the medical community that say, if you wanna learn about something. Here’s that data so that you understand what might come down in your history, what you can do to, prevent it. But then also what’s going on with you today, especially in a chronic illness, what’s going on.
Your sugar is high. What are things that you can do data coming back from the medical community saying if your thing looks like this here’s some action plans. That’s what the information education is. It’s not, Hey, let me teach you about the disease it’s here. Let me help you figure out where you are today.
[00:05:00]
And here’s some, based on what you say, the medical community recommends you take some of these steps to feel better, get control, call your doctor. We’re not gonna diagnose, we’re gonna say, “Hey, you’re in acute situation, go to the ER or call your doctor at this point.” So the idea is at the time of, you seeing that at the time, especially like Fitbits and all that, you’re gonna get data.
What does this mean? You know what, maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means you should call your doctor. So that’s. That’s the goal and we’ll continue to refine that is we have customers give us feedback.
Levi: Yeah. It’s gonna be great. And I think [00:05:30] about in summary, it’s not only having that education one spot for me and my personal health.
Yeah. But again, I think about the caregiver.
Shannon: Yes.
Levi: As the caregiver is gonna have all of a sudden be looking at, my mom or my dad’s or my child’s information. And I could share that with my family and that we’re all on the same page. We’re no longer this this, everybody in their own little silo to be all in one location.
So it’s really good.
Shannon: Yeah. And it’s documented. Everybody says the doctor knows if Shannon translates it. I just took my dad to the doctor. [00:06:00] Because I wasn’t sure if he had a stroke, if he had something else and they did the tests and the doctor said, “do you have the portal?”
Let’s talk through the education, let’s do this. He taught me about it. And now I have to translate that for my family. It’d be great. If I could just go here. It is here it is guys. Here’s what’s going on with dad. He can’t drive anymore. Can somebody pick him up in that? Yeah. And being able to enable the caregiver in that scenario and also to be kind because empath, I should say, em, empathetic, I guess is more the word.
Levi: Thank you so much, Shannon.
Shannon: Thank you.
Levi: I really appreciate it.
[00:06:30]
MyHealthHatch is about making sure you have all of your health in one place. We believe that people make better health decisions when all their medical info is easy to access and understand.
And so what we do is we put all your records, your data, your appointments, and even this education that we talked about today, all in one app and make it easy for you.
That’s it for today. Thank you for watching Unlimited Access.
Shannon: Thank you.