Josh learned about the MiVIA personal health record, and then I did. We’re both very interested in it. From the MiVIA Web site:

MiVIA™ was launched in 2003 as a personal health record for migrant and seasonal workers in Sonoma Valley, California. Today MiVIA™ provides an electronic record for several thousand people and their families across the country. The program has expanded opening the door for other populations with special or unique needs. It is especially useful for people who have no insurance, who have chronic medical conditions and/or who access care from many different providers or locations.

MiVIA™ is increasingly being adopted by clinics, mobile medical units, rural hospitals and practices as a simple easy-to-use and cost effective electronic medical record (EMR) connecting providers serving MiVIA™ members and each other.

I was interested by the idea that this project involves a population that has not previously been considered for PHR use, and interacts with health systems that may not have fully deployed health information technology.

We had the pleasure of talking with one of MiVIA’s principles, Heidi Stovall, and asked her to appear here as guest blogger, and she agreed. Here’s what she wanted people to know:

My name is Heidi Stovall. In 2002 my colleague, Cynthia Solomon and I developed MiVIA as a pilot project offering a personal health record to the migrant and seasonal farm workers that came through our town, Sonoma California, for the wine grape harvest. In 1999 we had developed our first PHR called followme.com as a result of her need to manage her son’s chronic illness (hydrocephalus) as a child by literally carrying a box of papers and scans in her car so that she would have it at all times. The customization of followme into MiVIA was funded through grants from The California Endowment to our non-profit organization.

My role with MiVIA as president of our non profit organization, is to promote, demonstrate, and sell MiVIA contracts as well as to work with our existing clients to get input and help with implementation planning. The attention we have been getting has been amazing. Many of our outcomes have been unintentional but very interesting. By demonstrating the use of the PHR in a particularly vulnerable population, we have shown that if “they” can use it and benefit from it, anyone can. And more and more people are thinking about PHRs and vulnerable populations differently now.

What I love about what I do is hearing the “ah ha!” in peoples voices when they see the demonstration. What a concept, information management with the patient at the center!

Heidi will be monitoring this thread, so feel free to post a comment about your thoughts and questions about this program.