Cloud-Based Medical Registries Make Patients’ Wishes Known

Most people don’t go around with living wills and “Do Not Resuscitate” orders in their back pockets.

For that reason, when an emergency strikes and a patient is unable to speak for him or herself, family members or physicians have to make critical health-care decisions without full knowledge of the patient’s desires.

That situation can be avoided when health-care providers, emergency medical personnel, and family members have immediate electronic access to documents describing a patient’s treatment wishes, Nathan A. Kottkamp, a health-care attorney with McGuire Woods in Richmond, Va., told Bloomberg Law.

Electronic Registry

“If each member ...