Monitoring your health electronically can be fun! (Or at least motivating)

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For the health-obsessed (and considering what Americans spend on healthcare, in some ways we are indeed health-obsessed), what could be better than a leisurely perusal of one’s healthcare records? Always-perusable healthcare records.

Electronic health and medical records make that possible -- and folks who use them seem to take more control of their healthcare, suggests a new survey from the California HealthCare Foundation.

Among other things, the records let patients double-check the information within and help them feel they know more about their own health.

Here’s the full California HealthCare Foundation report.

Of course, as the study points out, only about 7% of American adults have used the things. But it might not be a stretch to say those numbers will rise. (Californians seem fonder of them than most Americans, the data shows.)

As for what Americans spend on healthcare, that would be about $7,681 per resident in 2008, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Check out the pie chart on how that breaks down.)

-- Tami Dennis