Personal Health Records – Is your site ready?
We all have personal health records, typically on paper and located at our Physician’s office or a hospital we may have visited. Like most healthcare consumers, we use what is made available by our healthcare provider or payer. While the number of patients using electronic PHR’s is small, the experiences patient’s and doctors had after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita certainly demonstrate the value of electronic records. Thousands of evacuees could not receive care because there records were destroyed or simply not available to the caregivers.
There are several types of PHR’s available to the public, the most common are the public Cloud based PHR’s and there is no shortage of choices, with one search I found at least 50 sites offering PHR’s, from insurance, grocery stores and several private companies. Our healthcare providers have a lot at stake with the PHR, according to the meaningful use guidelines, those obtaining Stimulus (ARRA) funding for adoption of a certified EHR must provide a PHR to their patients by 2013. With no real PHR standard, what qualifies as a PHR under the meaningful use rules? Health and Human Services had the term PHR defined as:
“PHR, Personal Health Record: “An electronic record of health-related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability standards and that can be drawn from multiple sources while being managed, shared, and controlled by the individual.”
One of the key differentiator with the PHR’s in the market today is the ability to make the data within the record actionable. The idea is not to just have repository with personal health information, but provide tools that allow a patient engage with there Physician or healthcare provider. Our clients need the ability to tether there PHR solution to the hospital’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and other services. This means that information like lab results, patient instructions, appointments to name a few all flow in and out of the PHR. The opportunity is to help select the best PHR and architecture to integrate into our respective client sites.
There are several types of PHR’s available to the public, the most common are the public Cloud based PHR’s and there is no shortage of choices, with one search I found at least 50 sites offering PHR’s, from insurance, grocery stores and several private companies. Our healthcare providers have a lot at stake with the PHR, according to the meaningful use guidelines, those obtaining Stimulus (ARRA) funding for adoption of a certified EHR must provide a PHR to their patients by 2013. With no real PHR standard, what qualifies as a PHR under the meaningful use rules? Health and Human Services had the term PHR defined as:
“PHR, Personal Health Record: “An electronic record of health-related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability standards and that can be drawn from multiple sources while being managed, shared, and controlled by the individual.”
One of the key differentiator with the PHR’s in the market today is the ability to make the data within the record actionable. The idea is not to just have repository with personal health information, but provide tools that allow a patient engage with there Physician or healthcare provider. Our clients need the ability to tether there PHR solution to the hospital’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and other services. This means that information like lab results, patient instructions, appointments to name a few all flow in and out of the PHR. The opportunity is to help select the best PHR and architecture to integrate into our respective client sites.
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