Dr. Gordon Leingang
DO, FACEP, FACOEP
President of the ND Chapter of ACEP (American
College of Emergency Physicians)
Emergency Room Physician
St. Alexius Medical Center

To Whom It May Concern:

I have been asked to reduce in writing some of my thoughts about HealthTracer's services from my perspective as an Emergency Physician.

Allow me to first say that HealthTracer's concept is brilliant. The most challenging part of my work is trying to gather a pertinent past history, medications, etc. on an often critically ill or injured patient in a timely fashion. More often than not, the patient cannot give me the information I need. HealthTracer fills that need marvelously. In particular, I was pleased with how the services can save precious resources by eliminating the ordering of unnecessary or duplicative tests and procedures.

Let me share a couple of examples that recently presented themselves: A 54-year-old male with a history of heart problems has chest pain. He tells me he recently had some sort of test done on his heart, but cannot elaborate beyond that. He had an EKG with some nonspecific findings. This, by the way, is an extremely common scenario. If I would have had access to his records, or at least known where and when his tests were performed, I would have been able to ascertain that his EKG was unchanged and stable, and that he had recently undergone a duel isotope myocardial perfusion scan and stress treadmill that showed his heart to be perfectly healthy. Instead, because I had no access to that information, he was hospitalized overnight with serial EKG's and lab work done, Then, in the morning, underwent the same studies that he had had done a mere two months previously. We could have saved the patient considerable time, worry and money.

Here is another example: A 57-year old male is presented with left flank pain thought to be a kidney stone. He tells me that he's healthy. He fails to tell me that he is on the medication for Type II Diabetes. This medication renders him dangerously susceptible to acute kidney failure if he were administered contrast dye and sent for a CT scan. With his condition unknown to me, I administered the dye and he suffered acute renal failure requiring emergent dialysis - simply because he was traveling without his medication or records.

Here are some of the facts of life working in the ER:
1. Patients rarely know which medications they are on.
2. Lots of patients don't know what surgeries they've had, and they never know, for example, what vessels were bypassed when they had their coronary artery bypass, knowing their anatomy in these cases is crucial.
3. They rarely remember their allergies or the past medications that didn't work for them.
4. They typically are unable to accurately tell you what diagnostic studies they've had done (i.e. CT scans, ultrasounds, stress tests, lab work, chest x-rays, etc.)

Very often, this information would, at least, save the patient and their family a considerable amount of worry, much less a bundle of money if we didn't have to repeat the tests and procedures. And, very often this information is lifesaving. It would be a dream if the entire world would subscribe to HealthTracer's services! It would make my life so much easier, and it would protect so many patients, potentially saving some of their lives.