Patent ID: 8626532

Claim:
A method for providing a patient with a service to access and collect personal health records associated with the patient in a secure and private manner, the method comprising: associating access information with the patient for the patient to use to access a server storing files comprising personal health records of the patient in a computer readable storage medium; providing the patient with a web-based user interface on a web-enabled computing device to remotely access the personal health records stored on the server, the web-based user interface further provides (a) communications management features for managing communications with health care providers, (b) a managing prescriptions feature for managing prescriptions, and (c) an emergency access feature allowing the patient to specify emergency information; providing the patient with the web-based user interface on the web-enabled computing device to remotely access the personal health records stored on the server, the web-based user interface providing for organizing the files into separate file folders with functionality for the patient to name the file folders and individually assign password protection to one or more of the file folders; receiving at the server the files comprising personal health records associated with the patient from a health care provider providing services to the patient; receiving at the server a request from the patient made through the user interface of the web-enabled computing device for access to the files, wherein the access information is associated with the request; sending the patient a file containing a personal health record of the patient from the server to the web-enabled computing device in response to the request; receiving authorization from the patient to send patient protected health information to the server; wherein the files are maintained separately from any files maintained by the health care provider and wherein the files are managed privately by the patient.