A Research Agenda for Personal Health Records (PHRs)

Abstract

A b s t r a c t Patients, policymakers, providers, payers, employers, and others have increasing interest in using personal health records (PHRs) to improve healthcare costs, quality, and efficiency. While organizations now invest millions of dollars in PHRs, the best PHR architectures, value propositions, and descriptions are not universally agreed upon. Despite widespread interest and activity, little PHR research has been done to date, and targeted research investment in PHRs appears inadequate. The authors reviewed the existing PHR specific literature (100 articles) and divided the articles into seven categories, of which four in particular-evaluation of PHR functions, adoption and attitudes of healthcare providers and patients towards PHRs, PHR related privacy and security, and PHR architecture-present important research opportunities. We also briefly discuss other research related to PHRs, PHR research funding sources, and PHR business models. We believe that additional PHR research can increase the likelihood that future PHR system deployments will beneficially impact healthcare costs, quality, and efficiency. Ⅲ J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2008;15:729 -736.

Use of an Electronic Patient Portal Among Disadvantaged Populations

“…[1][2][3][4] Portals and PHRs are currently used by only about 7% of Americans 5 , but they are growing in popularity 5,6 and are likely to become more common in light of the Department of Health and Human Services' 2010 rule to encourage "meaningful use" of health information technology, under which providers and hospitals can receive incentives for measures such as providing patients with electronic copies of their health information upon request. 7 To benefit from such electronic communication, however, consumers and patients will require computer and Internet access 8 , computer literacy 9 , health literacy 10,11 , and numeracy.…”

Health Literacy and the Digital Divide Among Older Americans

“…Surprisingly, given the substantial body of research that documents the importance of health literacy in health behaviors and outcomes, [21][22][23] it has been largely overlooked as a determinant of health IT use. 24,25 One study 16 used a large sample of patients with diabetes enrolled in a single health plan in northern California to document the importance of health literacy as a predictor of Internet-based patient portal use, even after controlling for basic demographic characteristics. This finding supports the idea that individuals with low health literacy are on the wrong side of the digital divide; however, no population-based study to date has estimated the relationship between health literacy and use of the Internet to obtain health information in the general population of older Americans.…”

How does Canada stack up? A bibliometric analysis of the primary healthcare electronic medical record literature

“…12 In addition, we identified few publications that focused on methods of educating primary healthcare trainees on the use of EMRs in practice. This is a definite gap in research which needs to be addressed, given the eventual ubiquity of EMRs in primary health care and the need to use this technology in effective ways during patient encounters.…”