Still other insurance companies offer personal health records that mostly allow you to look at claims data.

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Blue Button for America has moved personal health records ahead significantly by giving millions of veterans and other Americans massively improved, secure access to their own health information.

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This is the laudable goal of competing Web sites Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault, as well as of a number of other groups that are attempting to create personal health records on the Web.

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Software marketer and kidney cancer survivor Dave deBronkart thought he was being smart when he downloaded his health records from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston into his account at Google Health, a new site that promises to help patients control their personal health records online.

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Other efforts focus on giving consumers better access to their own health records and personal education data so that they can make informed choices.

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She complained that nurses were having to log-off from generic accounts through which they could access health records, in order to access personal accounts through which they apply for leave or register overtime.

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