Recently I was in my physician’s office for a routine visit.  An assistant brought my medical file to the examining room while she took my blood pressure and performed some other basic health checks. I started looking at the history of my blood pressure readings and the assistant protested. “you can not look in this file without the physician present.”  Are you kidding me?  It is MY RECORD!  So goes health care.  I recently came across a post/commenting on an ongoing conversation on the National Health Dialogue blog that we will improve our health system by developing technologies to standardize medical records and patient histories and that patients want control of their health care.  By creating standardized medical records and medical histories and by encouraging patient access, we will create a higher standard of health care.  What’s your take?