Third Party Applications and Your Protected Health Information (PHI)

Cook Children's and your child's PHI

You and your child's health information is stored in an electronic health record (EHR).
MyCookChildren's patient portal is a secure way to look at information in your child's EHR.
You may use your computer, tablet or a smart phone to access MyCookChildren's.
This information is protected. Cook Children's works very hard to protect your privacy.

Accessing your child's protected health information outside of MyCookChildren's patient portal

Many companies make mobile applications (apps) to keep track of fitness, nutrition, and activities. These are called third-party apps.
You can choose to give these third-party apps permission to connect to your child's personal health information that is stored in MyCookChildren's.
To do this you, or any guardian, will need to sign into your MyCookChildren's account using your username and password when the third-party app asks you to.
After you do this, the app can request and use the information in your MyCookChildren's account.
The types of information they can get from your child's electronic health record includes things like:
- Doctor's notes
- Weight, height, blood pressure
- Family medical history
- Lab results
- Medications
- Smoking status
- Shot and vaccine records
- Allergies
- Sicknesses, diseases, procedures or surgeries
These third-party apps do not keep your MyCookChildren's username and password saved.
After a certain amount of time, the connection between the app and your MyCookChildren's account will time out. You will need to reenter your MyCookChildren's username and password.
If you do not have a MyCookChildren's account, please request one here.

How this connection works:

*Disclaimer: Cook Children's does not endorse any specific third-party vendor's product for use*

Before you decide to use third-party apps

It is very important to read the "terms and conditions" for any app you may use. When you use a third-party app, you agree to let a company have access to you or your child's very private health information. You need to know how they will use and protect this information.
Cook Children's cannot help you if these apps don't work right or if the information they show you is wrong. You will need to get help from the company that made the app.
Cook Children's cannot suggest or recommend which third-party apps to use.

Technical details about how this works.

An application program interface (API) allows MyCookChildren's to share information with a third-party app. It uses a standard interface called fast healthcare interoperability resources (FHIR). Third-party app developers can design their applications to allow you to access you or your child's Cook Children's data using the FHIR API's. The connection between the app and MyCookChildren's uses the OAuth 2.0 standard for secure authentication to protect your privacy.