While it unflatteringly plays into tired gender stereotypes, the site MotherKnows does offer a pretty interesting service. For parents.
The startup offers 24/7 access to children’s medical records, enabling parents to view their child’s immunizations, growth charts and doctor’s visits. The site is encrypted, but parents can authorize others to access information from their child’s Personal Health Records (PHRs).
Founder Hesky Kutscher had this to say about the concept:
“There’s so much information that can be accessed ‘easily and instantly’ these days… But medical information hasn’t been among that. So, through MotherKnows, we hope to give parents the ability to pull up their child’s entire medical history whenever they want, which is sure to make for added efficiency when it comes to doctor’s visits, emergency care, insurance conversations – and yes, those dreaded registrations.”
Kutscher says the developers worked with a medical advisory panel, and that the site falls in line with federal privacy statutes like HIPAA. MotherKnows is in beta right now, and not to belabor the point, but one wonders how dads feel about the name being so dated and exclusionary- and this mom wonders if it’s ever a great strategy to shut out 50% or more of a potential market.
Still, the service is pretty valuable, and makes great use of the digitization of health records- an area that hasn’t, as of yet, been very accessible to patients. Do you think a service like MotherKnows is something you’d access? Would you like a similar service for your own medical records?
