Abstract
One of the most difficult issues that confronts clinicians and patients alike is sharing EHRs across service providers. While HIPAA grants ownership of EHR data to patients, the information is not easily shareable. At times, doctors cannot access their own patients' EHR in two different medical systems even when the record keeping systems are the same and patients grant consent. The onus of sharing falls on the patient who must physically acquire the necessary record. Such a policy hinders quality of service, causes delays and higher costs for all involved. In this paper, we introduce a new data sharing protocol aimed at reducing this hurdle, using a personal health library architecture being encouraged by National Institutes of Health in the USA.