There are a number of services out there that provide you with online storage for your personal health records (PHRs) and other personal documents.  The product we have chosen to offer with a Qvisory membership is MyEsafeDepositBox (MESDB).

Honestly, when I first became a Qvisory member and received access to MESDB as part of my membership (a welcome perk of my job as Qvisory's Health Content Manager!) I was skeptical and didn’t think I’d really make much use of the service.  But, after playing around with it, I really grew to like it.

When you activate your MESDB account, you’ll be provided with your own toll-free number – your lifeline.  You can fax documents to this number and they’ll appear online in your account.  If you’d like doctors and others to send records to you, you can simply provide them with your lifeline.  It’s simple and very convenient.  Your documents become portable and you have the ability to easily send them wherever you want them to go yourself, cutting back on delays.

You have two ways to transfer documents to your MESDB account:

1. Fax them to your lifeline.
2. Upload them straight from your computer.

I’ve used both methods, as I have a fax machine in my home office.  The quality of the faxed documents is pretty good, though uploading documents from your computer is understandably better.  Don't have a fax machine?  You can scan your documents into your computer and then upload them to your account.

MESDB isn’t just for your health records - it can be used for storing and safekeeping of any personal document that you want to be able to refer to online or deliver yourself.  Here are some of the documents I’ve transferred to my account:

• Apartment lease
• Work contracts
• Tax records
• Product warranties
• Pet health records

I've also thought of a lot of reasons that have convinced me to put my records online:

• If I am traveling and get sick, I can obtain my health records to give to any doctor I see.
• If I move and change doctors, dentists, veterinarians, etc., I can easily provide them with my records.
• I can back up essential documents in case of a natural disaster or burglary.
• If I lose my ID while traveling, I'm not out of luck. One of my friends lost her passport while in Australia and another lost her driver's license in Hawaii.  It was a real hassle to replace them.
• If I'm in an accident, a relative or doctor to whom I have provided my emergency password can get access to my medical records.

Backing up information is a necessity in today's world.  I really like the portability MESDB offers me. 

You can also add additional family members (for free) in your account and upload their documents as well.  It’s very handy to have all of your information in one secure place.

Some people are concerned with storing their personal documents online, particularly their PHRs.  You may or may not know about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).  HIPAA established standards for electronic transactions of healthcare records for institutions that own patients' data (e.g. medical institutions and health insurance companies).  Third parties are not subject to HIPAA; however, MESDB voluntarily follows the guidelines and employs an attorney who specializes in HIPAA.

I feel assured that my documents are safe.  The MESDB website utilizes an SSL connection, which in my opinion is a requirement before I’ll transmit sensitive data.  I also like the fact that they voluntarily follow HIPAA.  Personally, I wouldn’t use a service that didn’t do so.  While I’m on the subject of security, I highly recommend creating a hard-to-guess password.  I recommend using a combination of letters, numbers, and characters.

MESDB also allows for others (doctors, medical institutions, family members, etc.) to access your account in emergencies.  You provide trusted people with your emergency password – different from your main account password – and they are able to access documents in your Emergency file folder, as well as other folders you have set to Accessible.  This brings up an important point: I recommend taking a lot of the default access permissions associated with your file folders.  You can do this by clicking on the Manage File Folders button under My Account.  The folders you set to Accessible will be available to people who hold your emergency password.

I’ll be blogging about additional PHR management tools in the future.  As I said above, there are numerous tools, but Qvisory has chosen to offer MyEsafeDepositBox as a membership benefit.

Do you use an online service to store your health and personal records?  If so, which one?  If not, why not?