Abstract: A personal health record communications network system including a document source for originating a healthcare information document associated with a patient wherein the document includes identifying elements of at least one of the patient and a document consumer. A sending agent, associated with the document source and in communication with the communications network, sends the document to an intended destination address associated with the document consumer. An intermediary server receives the healthcare information document based on the intended destination address and processes the healthcare information document based on at least a portion of the identifying elements. A receiving agent, associated with the document consumer and in communication with the communication network, receives the processed healthcare information document from the intermediary server.

Abstract: A healthcare information interchange system including a sender for originating one or more healthcare information documents associated with a patient, a first repository in communication with the sender for i) storing the one or more healthcare information documents received from the sender and ii) distributing the one or more healthcare information documents based on consent rules associated with each of the one or more documents, a recipient for receiving the one or more healthcare information documents based on the consent rules, and an identity provider for assigning first and second identities to the patient, the first identity being presented to the first repository by the sender to identify the patient, the second identity being presented by the first repository to the recipient to identify the patient.

Abstract: The invention, in one embodiment, is directed to a healthcare information system including: a client interface unit for creating one or more healthcare information documents, a repository in communication with the client interface unit for storing one or more healthcare information documents received from the client interface unit, a registry in communication with the repository for maintaining an index table of one or more healthcare information documents stored in the repository and for maintaining control information associated with each document for controlling the distribution of each documents from the repository, and a patient interface unit in communication with the registry for enabling a patient to configure at least a portion of the control information within the registry associated with one or more healthcare information documents.