Patients and doctors were interviewed at hospitals and at their homes.

Total number of Patients: 8

Total number of Doctors: 4

Focus changes related to findings: Focus changed from patients towards doctors also.

All user notes were marked and printed. Then individual statements were cut out and spread out on a chart to be clustered into related and meaningful packets. These packets were then connected to other packets to see relationships and affinities. Insights were drawn from these packets/clusters.

R1: Probability of finding records reduces with time 
R2: Chronic illness/ On-going demands more diligent record keeping 
R3: Proper record keeping can avoid miscommunication 
R4: Higher Taboo implies higher Privacy 
R5: Vaccination requires disciplined approach to record keeping, drops after 1 year members records can be maintained and access by one person in the family 
R6: Patients seek convenient and transparent access to their records 
R7: Patients exhibit loyalty to certain hospitals and doctors based on brand and personal experience
R8: Patients do change doctors and hospitals over time 
R9: Many patients like to maintain and organise their records
R10: Doctors do not want to own responsibility of maintaining patient records 
R11: Medical records system cannot be imported , Indian context is unique 
R12: Overseas Travel requires records 
R13: Medical records are important in emergencies 
R14: People often forget to collect their medical reports -especially for non critical illnesses 
R15: What's app messaging is being extensively used for Inter-Doctor collaboration 
R16: Medical records need to be treated in a secured  manner

R17: Literacy and awareness affects patients perception of medical records 
R18: Family members records can be maintained and access by one person in the family

DI 1: Inter hospital communication protocols for sharing patient record data in digital format 

D1 2: Use digital birth certificates for child vaccination lifecycle 

DI 3: Medical Records as a service (MRAS) 

DI 4: Secure Digital wallet on deceive (integrated with cloud) for storing and accessing personal and family medical records 

DI 5: Automated alerts / reminder for treatment/ medications / tests for choric / ongoing illnesses 

DI 6: Doctor and Hospital reviews, ratings, feedback by patients on social media
 
DI 7: Leverage Whatsapp, Facebook , Google Drive for sharing and storing medical records

•Doctor does not want to take responsibility of keeping and maintaining custody of records

•India needs a unique system which caters to its diverse needs and population characteristics

•Privacy is a key requirement for the new solution specially for patients with serious illnesses

•System that adapts to different situations like casual, emergency, vaccinations etc

•Family medical records as a concept has got diluted

•There is no unique Doctor-Patient pair over time. People keep changing hospitals and doctors with time

•Hospitals have become highly industrialized and take customer retention/loyalty very seriously

•Family as a umbrella

•Medical Records are most important in emergency/critical situations

An app for managing personal medical records

While there have been several software products for managing medical records electronically, none of them seem work for the diverse medical systems such as those in India. We have many systems – the government hospitals in urban or rural areas, the large private hospitals, charitable hospitals, small nursing homes, independent specialists, family doctor GPs and some others. None of these have systems that talk to each other. The challenge is to design a system of recording medical information that patients can manage within themselves.

We created a few flowcharts to help breakdown the steps that will be needed in this solution.