[Peradine]

Medical histories are useful when thinking about diagnosis and management. The problem is that they're rarely accessible in a concise or summarized format. Medical systems produce huge amounts of paperwork, even a simple day trip to an A+E department will produce about 30 sheets of paper, and there's no automated way to extract the pertinent information from that. Its much easier to just ask the patient about important things in their medical history, and if any of the previous diagnoses are particularly significant you can delve into the previous records.

[kmgrassi]

This is a great point. As a MD I don't think the process of asking a patient his/her past medical history will every go away. It clarifies how the patient thinks about their medical problems and develops a good rapport.

But as you allude to, having a summary of pertinent medical information, compiled from patient records located in various hospitals, would be enormously valuable for a doctor seeing a new patient. For example, your emergency room doctor having a one page summary of your medical information to be reviewed quickly in an emergency.