Our Story

Dr. Kelso often tells the story of awakening to a 5AM page from a surgery intern in a panic. One of our patients on the liver transplant waiting list, Stacey, was admitted overnight for transplant scheduled for noon. As the intern was reviewing her admission records, he noticed that she had abnormal mammogram the week before. This was a BIG problem. A diagnosis of breast cancer would exclude Stacey from transplant.

If her doctors can show that the findings on Stacey’s mammogram are stable from her prior imaging, then she can proceed with transplant. Unfortunately, her last mammogram was done at a competing hospital across town and their medical records department is closed on the weekends.

Scrambling to find a solution, the team pulled off an almost impossible feat. In a few short hours, the transplant team was able to get a colleague at the outside hospital to copy the imaging to a disk; enlist the patient’s family to drive over to pick up the DVD; and call in a radiology technician and breast radiologist to upload and interpret the imaging.

Stacey got the life saving surgery she needed–no thanks to our broken records system.

Vitalnotes was born out of frustration

Keeping track of your medical records can be hard, thanks to our fragmented electronic health record (EHR) systems. Although 96% of hospitals have adopted EHRs to track medical records, few systems routinely talk to one another leaving doctors to resort to fax and CD-ROM to share medical data.

Patients complain when they realize their doctors do not share or have all the same information about their care. Physicians are overwhelmed with trying to piece together patient narratives from the patient, family members, electronic records, notes in wallets, prescription bottles, and stacks of paper documentation.

Vitalnotes allows patients to become digital stewards of their medical records. Patients are empowered to bridge the chasm between health systems and share their own records when it matters most.