An elderly couple from Michigan spend the winter months in southern Arizona at their second home.
One evening the husband notices a large amount of blood in his stools. Concerned, they quickly present to the local emergency room.
He has a previous history of colon polyps and thinks that one of the polyps was precancerous. He doesn't remember when his last colonoscopy was done in Michigan. He admits that he didn't follow up with his doctor as directed. His doctor in Michigan died two years earlier and he hasn't seen a physician since then. He may have also had an upper endoscopy done also, but doesn't remember. He takes a blood thinner but can not remember the name of it, nor can he remember the dosage.
Then he states that he subscribes to MedArc's service and provides the user name and password. The emergency room physician logs into and views his medical record archive. He reviews the patient's previous colonoscopy reports, prints them out, and places them on his ER chart. The emergency room physician notes that his blood counts were normal two years ago. Now his blood counts are lower, consistent with anemia. He also prints out the patients "face sheet" from the patient's medical record archive and places it in the patient's chart.
The emergency room physician then contacts the gastroenterologist and reports his previous colonoscopy reports to him and he is admitted to the hospital.
The gastroenterologist then sees and evaluates the patient. First, he reviews the patient's MedArc face sheet and discusses the patient's medical information. Second, he verifies that the patient's blood thinner is not coumadin, which would have increased his risk of bleeding during subsequent endoscopies.
The patient receives his appropriate bowel preps and is scheduled for endoscopies the following day.
The endoscopies identify a small stomach ulcer, which can be treated with medications. More importantly, the gastroenterologist identifies a colon cancer in the first part of his colon. He then contacts the local general surgeon.
The general surgeon then evaluates the patient and is curious about what operations he had in the past. He then logs into the patients medical record archive and reviews the patients previous operative reports and schedules him for surgery. He comments how convenient it is to have his records from Michigan readily available and verifies that it does indeed help to streamline his medical and surgical care.
His surgery goes well. One month after his reccovery he is then referred to an oncologist who also reviews his medical record archive and is pleased as to how nice it is to have a concise collection of his medical records.
