Personal Health Record Systems

Question: Discuss about the Personal Health Record Systems. Answer: Introduction: Patient-centered care forms a strong pillar of a high-performance and high-quality health care system. One approach of doing this is through personal health records (PHRs) of the patients. PHR is an evolving patient-centric model of health information interchange. PHRs are an important tool that empower patients and stimulate right decisions and actions in healthcare. Electronic PHRs offer patients a precipitate of their health records and the care they were provided so that they can reference it in the future when needed. Moreover, if the PHR data is managed accurately and clinical analysis is done properly, the large quantities of data (big data) can provide gleaning new insights from its clinical analysis by providing unique opportunities to reduce the costs of health care, readmissions, triage, decompensation, adverse events, and optimization of treatment for diseases disturbing multiple organ systems. Thus, hospitals and clinics should adopt and use health information technology in the entire health care delivery system to improve patient access to their personal health records. The following strategies may be helpful in this process: Introduction of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs): EMRs assemble, stock, and display patient information using computerized medical information systems. They allow creation of readable and systematized recordings and access to clinical information related to individual patients. Escalating the use of interoperable electronic health record (EHR) systems for the advancement of health care delivery should, in fact, be a national policy priority. The hitching of a PHR to an EMR may aid in speeding the dispersal of integrated PHRs. Arranging for the technical requirements, support, and assistance: EHR use requires some user and system characteristics, support from others, and many organizational and environment organizers. Communication strategies and technology features have key insinuations in the management of PHR enactments. The health records should be shared between patients and their providers by means of self-administered functions to support sustainable use of the system. Adoption and rate of usage may also be affected by the accessibility of enough office staff for hands-on training along with support in the elucidation of medical information. Personal health record systems (PHRS) should be developed such that it can facilitate patients can access their health data anytime, anywhere in the world. PHRS also offers many features to help the providers in involving, educating, and empowering patients, thereby making proactive and preventive care a reality. Accelerate technology adoption: The physician and patent adoption of basic EHR can be increased by enhancing their computational capabilities through adequate training related to a basic EHR system. A training and support team should be available for keeping the data secure (as the data is outsourced to a third party, such as cloud providers, but should be kept private by encryption), accurate (wrong information can lead to wrong information leading to wrong decisions), updated (updating the information is very important). Patient activation: Health literacy of the patient plays and important role in the use of PHR. The health literacy level of the patient describes how well the patient understands resources delivered by doctors or other providers. Numerous factors, such as qualification level, income, and age, determine health literacy of the patients. Patient interpretation and understanding of the information is still not well understood. But there is need to address it completely and overcome it to realize the full potential of PHRs. So, there is need to address patients intention to use PHR systems which are influenced by system-related factors, such as alleged usefulness, health information understanding, personalization, communication support, and user-related factors, such as culture, disease state, societal influence, self-efficacy, and readiness to share. Patients need to be educated, especially in case of chronic diseases, about the importance of PHR. In case of a chronic illness, it improve s both health and financial outcomes, as more frequent and impactful interactions are possible using PHR with both current patients and those at risk of developing a chronic condition. So, patients need to adopt the transformation of healthcare organizations from a system based exclusively on in-person interactions to a system that uses digital solutions for supporting physician-patient interactions irrespective of the patients or physicians location. Provider satisfaction: The provider needs to be updated about the benefits and use of technology through proper training. Both positive and negative financial incentives may also influence the rate of physicians adoption of EHR systems. The meaningful-use of this technology should be demonstrated by the physicians and providers. References Agarwal R, Anderson C, Zarate J, Ward C. If We Offer it, Will They Accept? 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