LOS ANGELES – Last year’s drug overdose death of Australian actor Heath Ledger is being used as the rallying cry in efforts to improve PHR use.

The latest improvement comes from MMR Information Systems, Inc., of Los Angeles, the parent company of MyMedicalRecords, Inc., which provides online patient-controlled personal health records. MMR is making its comprehensive prescription drug database available free of charge on the MyMedicalRecords PHR site, allowing PHR users quick and easy access to data on potential adverse interactions across multiple prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

“As a company whose primary business is offering a low-cost, easy-to-use Personal Health Record, we believe it is important to make tools available for consumers to educate themselves about the potential dangers of the prescription drugs they take in the ordinary course of their life,” said Robert H. Lorsch, chairman and CEO of MMR, in a press release. “Knowledge about what is in your medicine cabinet may be just as important as keeping family members, and particularly children, away from the neighborhood drug dealer.”

MMR officials cited a recent study by the Archives of Internal Medicine that found a 564 percent increase in at-home drug-related deaths involving prescription or over-the-counter drugs as compared to a 5 percent finding in a clinical setting. Cited in connection with that study was the tragic case of Ledger, the recent posthumous Oscar winner for his role of The Joker in “Dark Knight,” who died last year from an accidental prescription drug overdose in his New York apartment.

“The amount of medical supervision is going down and the amount of responsibility put on the patient’s shoulders is going up,” reported David P. Philips of the University of California at San Diego, the study’s principal author.

This isn’t the first use of Hollywood celebrities to focus attention on healthcare-related dangers. Advocates for the privacy of medical data have often cited hospital data breaches involving George Clooney, Britney Spears and Maria Shriver, among others. And actor Dennis Quaid has campaigned for medication safety in the hospital setting in the wake of the near-fatal overdoses of his twin children. Quaid will be making his case at this year’s Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) show and conference next month in Chicago, where he is to be one of the keynote speakers.

By linking Ledger’s death to the use of PHRs, advocates are hoping to focus the attention on improving healthcare IT measures that give consumers better control over their healthcare decisions.

MMR’s customized drug database offers detailed information on more than 20,000 drugs. Visitors to the MyMedicalRecords PHR site can access the Cerner Multum Drug Content Database, licensed by Cerner to MMR, to check for potential adverse reactions.
 

Photo by Howie_Berlin and obtained under Creative Commons license.