E-BUSINESS

I just read a great post over at the Greystone blog that uses some of the statistics I frequently quote but mixes them with others I don’t know to come to an interesting conclusion.  The quote that Neal discusses in his entry and one I hear a lot also is that “My patients don’t use social media“.

I like how he proves that the common stereotype that old people don’t use the Internet just isn’t true anymore.

From the reading I’ve been doing lately about personal health records I have collated/synthesized twelve characteristics that a personal health record (PHR) should have.

1. Provide patient education
Along with storing a patient’s health records, a personal health record should provide education about a patient’s conditions, surgeries, medications, etc.

2. Lifelong and comprehensive
The information in a personal health record needs to consist of the entire health history of a patient and include all health care providers the patient has seen.

3. Accessible from any place at any time
The personal health record needs to be accessible by the patient and the health care provider whenever and wherever it is required.

4. Provide health management tools
Features need to include tools that allow the patient to record their data and compare it to what it should be so that the patient can improve their health.

5. Private and secure
Obviously, this characteristic is very important.  The patient information, both entered by the patient and what comes from the Electronic Medical Record (EMR), needs to be kept private and appropriate (or even more than necessary) security measures need to be used to keep the data secured.

6. Capture self reported values
A personal health record must allow a patient to enter their own information if the data is missing or incomplete in what exists.

7. Patient controls what data is entered into their PHR
The patient is able to add items to their personal health record and is able to control what data is put into their PHR, like data from their electronic medical record.

8. Access to the patient’s EMR data
To increase patient adoption, a personal health record must have the ability to interact with a patient’s electronic medical record.  Information should flow to the PHR from the EMR and the patient should be able to send data to the EMR (which can be accepted or rejected by the physician as needed).

9. Secure patient-provider communications
Not only should a personal health record provide health management tools, but a PHR should provide patients a method to communicate with their physician(s) to ask questions, report health measurements, etc.

10. Patient controls who has access to their information in the PHR
A patient should be able to share data in their personal health record to whomever they feel is appropriate.  The patient should be able to control this at the level of each individual item in the personal health record, like a single condition, medication.

11. Transparent
An audit trail needs to be available to the patient to see where the data items came from that are in their personal health record, who entered it, who has viewed each item and when.

12. Interoperability
The information in a personal health needs to be in a format that can be exported or shared between personal health records, electronic medical records, etc.

See how Community Health Network’s Personal Health Record stands up against these criteria.

We seem to be getting a lot of new videos posted lately. Here is an overview video of our Maternal Fetal Medicine program, featuring Lauren Dungy-Poythress, M.D and Deborah Skannal, M.D.

Another quick post featured a recently produced video from our New Media Lab. One week ago, Jan Bingle, Community Health Network’s Cheif Nursing Officer, was honored by the Community Health Network Foundation with the Jack Heiney Award.

One component that is frequently missed or downplayed in other personal health records (PHRs) is the patient education aspect.   I read some articles that state that this is one necessary component of a personal health record.  About 75% of online users search for health information on the Internet according to the Pew Internet Group and this statistic has held true for a several years now.

Community Health Network’s PHR is tightly integrated with the consumer health library and has been since it was designed and built two years ago.  A patient can add a record to their PHR and become better informed about their health at the same time.  And when a patient uses their personal health record eCommunity.com recommends other health content related to what the patient entered into their PHR.

Transactions are important on a health care website but also, just as important is patient education.  Most health care providers realize this but we have not only bought the obligatory consumer health information library, we have embraced it and used it for other applications on the website like the PHR.