Patent ID: 6941271

Claim:
A method for managing health care-related information about a patient as electronic records over a communications network comprising: electronically handling the records as a plurality of component fields maintained in a database of a health care organization, each component field associated with a particular type of data associated with the patient; storing access rules determined by the patient in a computer, the access rules based at least in part on a role of a person desiring access, to selectively govern access to the component fields by both health care providers and non health care providers; applying the access rules before the component fields are accessed; providing to a first group of individuals access based on the access rules to a first predetermined group of the component fields of the records when a first access parameter is present, the first access parameter relating to desired access by the first group of individuals, the first group of individuals including a first health care provider having a first role, the first predetermined group of the component fields relating to a first medical condition of the patent; providing to a second group of individuals access based on the access rules to a second predetermined group of the component fields of the records when a second access parameter different from the first access parameter is present, the second predetermined group of the component fields not identical to the first predetermined group of the component fields, the second access parameter relating to desired access by the second group of individuals not identical to the first group of individuals, the second group of individuals including a second health care provider having a second role not identical to the first role, the second predetermined group of the component fields relating to a second medical condition of the patient; and completely denying to the second group of individuals access to at least a portion of the first predetermined group of the component fields of the records, wherein the first predetermined group of the component fields is not all of the component fields and the second predetermined group of the component fields is not all of the component fields.