Why are patient initiatives important for good access to medical data?

To answer this question, we turn to Bart Viaene, a physician who has played a major role in the development of the Belgian health system:

"To introduce myself, I am Bart Viaene, a physician and also the founding father of the concept known as the Crossroads Bank of Social Security in Belgium. It is upon this concept that the eHealth platform takes its influence. I am still active as an external expert for both projects, within their Committee for Information Security.

I believe that Andaman7, as an independent software company borne from the patient movement, deserves without a doubt its rightful place in the world of personal health empowerment.

Patient portals and Andaman7 are complementary and work together in order to offer a complete service and multiple alternatives to patients, as well as to hospitals and doctors.

A balanced society needs checks and regulations to guarantee its legitimacy, which is also necessary in the medical field.

It would not be right if large academic, governmental, and professional networks and medical providers could monopolize patient records and the flow of medical information. Andaman7 tries to put health into the patient’s own hands, ensuring that the aforementioned networks remain honest.

Unlike other regional networks, the Andaman7 application is run by patients and not by hospitals.

With the Andaman7 application, patients get a copy of their data and can manually enter any other data, in comparison to patient portals which only allow patients to view their data, rather than enabling patients to record the medical data they wish to keep.

One of the advantages of Andaman7 is that patients can safely share their medical records with their doctor or a spouse, family member, etc. (the data is only stored locally on their device).

Those who try to monopolize this information, disregarding their patients, risk losing those patients by preferring unlimited treatment to prevention, which is neither in the interest of patients, nor of society, but only their own pockets..."