Patients Using Personal Health Records to Call the Shots While Doctors Give Them


LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 18, 2012) -  "The time is now for patient-centered care, and doctors are no longer just in, they are virtually everywhere," said Bob Lorsch, Chairman and CEO of MMRGlobal, Inc. (OTCBB: MMRF), in a blog posted on September 17th entitled "The Time, Space and Medical Records Continuum." Available at http://blog.mmrglobal.com/, the blog calls attention to media reporting on the awareness of patient-centered care and the explosion taking place in eHealth and health IT. Many healthcare analysts are predicting that health IT represents one of the best investment opportunities of our time, making this the right place at the right time for companies like MMRGlobal, a leading provider of patient-controlled Personal Health Records (PHRs) and electronic document management and imaging systems for healthcare professionals. In fact, just last week, the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/health/future/la-he-patient-centered-care-20120913,0,4906082.story) and iHealthBeat (http://www.ihealthbeat.org/perspectives/2012/health-it-promotion-goes-directtoconsumer.aspx), along with numerous additional other media and bloggers, published articles and commentary on eHealth topics and the role patients will play in managing their own care. 

The Company's MyMedicalRecords.com patented Personal Health Record connects patients to all their healthcare providers regardless of the system the physicians use at their office, be it plain paper or the most advanced electronic medical records system, and is the only system of its kind that does this for the entire family, including pets. This enables patients to be an active participant in managing the cost and quality of their family's healthcare and ensures that they are prepared in the event of any emergency.

Since its inception MMRGlobal, which went public in 2009, has been focusing on building a Personal Health Record that would seamlessly and securely allow patients to maintain copies of all their family's medical records and other important documents in one safe accessible place. The Company's MyMedicalRecords PHR, with more than 750,000 members, does just that. Lorsch had predicted a patient-centered care phenomenon, insisting that having a Personal Health Record would someday soon be as mainstream and important as having a credit report, and clearly, the time is now.

Increasingly, patients are calling the shots for their family's healthcare. They are empowered by having unfettered access to their protected health information through a patient portal or PHR such as MyMedicalRecords. In a special section in the Los Angeles Times dated September 13th, "The Doctor-Patient Relationship is Evolving," readers can see how eHealth and patient-controlled medicine is invaluable, particularly when test results are being monitored through telemedicine devices and the doctor's bag is being replaced by a Webcam. The eHealth phenomenon also represents one of the only ways doctors will be able to cost-effectively see more than 30 million new patients as they are added to insurance rolls from Obamacare.

According to the article "Health IT Promotion Goes Direct-To-Consumer," in the September 11th edition of iHealthBeat, "Most U.S. physicians are in the process of implementing electronic health records, motivated by the incentives provided through the HITECH Act. As physicians use EHRs more meaningfully, engaging with patients and their data is a primary goal for the investment of roughly $40 billion worth of taxpayer dollars." This includes a regulation that requires physicians provide Personal Health Records by 2014.

The iHealthBeat article continues, "Many people in the U.S. aren't aware that their health data are indeed 'theirs.'" According to Lorsch, "As more and more patients realize their health information is 'Theirs,' they will look for easy-to-use online systems to consolidate all their family's medical records in one secure place."

To further underscore all that is going on to promote patient empowerment, campaigns by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on the importance of PHRs seem to be everywhere, providing numerous testimonials like this one available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msBYOYYeHPw&feature=em-share_video_user. 

Even the music industry is getting into healthcare with the release of a music video entitled, "Gimme My DaM Data" (http://vimeo.com/48221070), which should not be nominated for a Grammy but might be seen someday soon on "The Doctors."

About MMRGlobal, Inc.

MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records ("PHRs") and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The MyMedicalRecords PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user's account. The Company's professional offering, MMRPro, is designed to give physicians' offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients in real time through an integrated patient portal. MMR is an Independent Software Vendor Partner with Kodak to deliver an integrated turnkey EMR solution for healthcare professionals. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId™/Specifid™ vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit www.mmrglobal.com. View demos and video tutorials of the Company's products and services at www.mmrtheater.com.

Forward-Looking Statements 

Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature, including future performance, expectations, beliefs, intentions, estimates or projections, constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause MMRGlobal, Inc.'s actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as "need," "possibility," "offer," "development," "if," "negotiate," "when," "begun," "believe," "achieve," "will," "estimate," "expect," "maintain," "plan," and "continue," or the negative of these words. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the risk our products and services are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community and retail markets; risks related to the current uncertainty and instability in financial and lending markets, including global economic uncertainties; initiatives and practices in the healthcare industry, including media reports and projections on patient-centered care; initiatives and practices in the healthcare industry, including media reports and projections on patient-centered care; product integration in physician practices and hospitals; timing and volume of sales and installations; length of sales cycles and the installation process; market acceptance of new product introductions; ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; relationships with licensees; competitive product offerings and promotions; changes in government laws and regulations and future changes in tax legislation; undetected errors in our products; possibility of interruption at our data centers; risks related to third-party vendors; risks related to obtaining and integrating third-party licensed technology; acceptance of the Company's marketing and promotional campaigns; risks related to a security breach by third parties; maintaining, developing, exploiting and defending our intellectual property rights including those pertaining to our biotechnology assets; uncertainties associated with doing business internationally across borders and territories; and additional risks discussed in the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. MMRGlobal, Inc. is providing this information as of the date of this release and, except as required by law, does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 

Contact Information:

CONTACT:

Michael Selsman
Public Communications Co.
(310) 922-7033
ms@publiccommunications.biz