ChartSpan: Manage Your Health Like It Isn't 1985

Are your medical records stuck in the 80's?

by Stacy Curtis

I met up with the ChartSpan folks at a recent expo and I was intrigued by the idea of electronic medical records at my fingertips. My doctor's office already sends me electronic information after every appointment. Having moved many times and knowing the pain of juggling/copying between old/new doctors and schools, I was drawn by this modern take on a need we all have...easily accessing medical records. I asked Armen Allahverdian, ChartSpan's Vice President of Digital Marketing, to share some insight into the technology.

KOAA: What exactly is ChartSpan?

Armen: ChartSpan is a free smartphone app being built for parents to manage their family’s health and immunization records like it isn’t 1985. It’s crazy to think that we all use our phones for mobile banking, family pictures, and fitness apps, and yet, no one has made an easy way to do it with health and immunization records.

With ChartSpan, we’re giving people an easy and secure way to request their records, organize those records, and send those records anywhere.

KOAA: How does your app work? How much time do I need to spend to get health records?

Armen: ChartSpan can be setup in less than 5 minutes. After a person downloads ChartSpan, all they have to do is make an account, put in each member of their family’s basic info, and start taking pictures of their family’s paper health and immunization records. It sort of works like using TurboTax’s SnapTax.

If a Mom can’t find her records, or she’s never had them before, she can request records from her doctor right from the app, asking for them over fax, mail, in office pick up, or even email.

Once a Mom or Dad has added family’s records in ChartSpan by just taking a picture and labeling them the secret sauce of ChartSpan kicks in. We’ve built technology that actually takes the text from the record pictures, scans them, and allows them to search for keywords on those health records. This makes it so parents don’t have to waste time manually typing all the info on a health record.

Lastly, parents can send records to anyone that needs them. This means health and immunization records for schools, summer camps, a new doctor or specialist, or organized sports leagues. All they need is someone’s contact info.

KOAA: Why should someone keep their medical records with them at all times?

Armen: One of the biggest problems in healthcare is doctors don’t share records or talk to each other about specific patients they share together. So if Mom goes to a new doctor, the ER for her kid, or to goes see a specialist, her family’s general care physician is in the dark on those trips unless she has health records with her.

Having that info can allow her family’s doctor appointments to be more focused on the present and future health rather than the past. The more information a doctor has, the easier it is to diagnose a problem.  In some cases, Mom’s having health and immunization records on them can literally be the difference between life and death.

Statistically speaking, a study done by the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that doctors who have access to their patients’ electronic health records have an 84% lower chance of being named in a medical malpractice claim.  

Imagine if a Dad had to take his kid to the emergency room for something? Think of all the questions they ask. ChartSpan puts all those answers on his phone in seconds.

KOAA: What about security? What if my phone is lost?

Armen: ChartSpan takes security seriously. To start with, not only is it safer than using a manila folder because it’s behind a password, but all health records go through three layers of encryption. What does this mean? If anyone were to ever hack into our system where health records are stored, that information would be gibberish without a login. It’s even gibberish to us.

Should a phone get lost or stolen or simply there are concerns about your login being compromised, the user can contact us on our website and we'll securely reset their login information.

KOAA: Do you have examples of the types of things the app does?

Armen: ChartSpan works great for anyone, but those it’ll help the most are new or expecting Moms, parents with toddlers all the way through college, and those that take care of the chronically ill.

Some good examples:

• We’ll have some expecting Moms that use it to keep track of all their doctor’s appointments and notes.
• We’ll have Dads who use it to keep their general care physician in the loop on what happens when he takes his son to the asthma specialist. He’ll use the app to put records on his phone, and send them to their general care physician after appointments.
• We’ll have some parents that have 3 kids, and can’t remember who got what shot. They’ll be able to send those immunization records to their preschools, grade schools, sports leagues, etc...all from the tap of their phone.
• We’ll have some parents that will use it to request records when the family moves, changes doctors, or changes insurance plans.
• We’ll have some Mom’s that will be thankful they have their daughter’s record on them when she goes to emergency room and they need to know her medication allergies.

KOAA: What are the limitations?

Armen: There aren’t many limitations, but patients should be aware of their rights with health records and requesting them. Here is a link to find out more information about it.

KOAA: I can't wait, when will it be out?

Armen: The app is on its final stages of completion. We plan to have the app launch sometime in July 2014. While you are waiting for our app to launch, we encourage everyone to join our worst kept secret club. By being part of this not-so-secret club, you'll have access to deals, discounts, and health related content. Click here to join "The Worst Kept Secret Club."

KOAA: Why/how did you come up with the idea?

Armen: We here at ChartSpan strongly feel that health records don’t belong trapped in cabinets somewhere in a manila folder collecting dust. We created ChartSpan to save lives. One of our co-founders Patrick Carter is an ER doctor and he has seen everything first hand and many times he felt, he could have diagnosed the issue sooner if the patient had their health records on hand. 

KOAA: Thanks, Armen! This is great information. 

For more information about ChartSpan click here.