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Personal health record

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A personal health record, or PHR, is a health record where health data and information related to the care of a patient is maintained by the patient.This stands in contrast to the more widely used electronic medical record, which is operated by institutions (such as hospitals) and contains data entered by clinicians or billing data to support insurance claims. The intention of a PHR is to provide a complete and accurate summary of an individual's medical history which is accessible online. The health data on a PHR might include patient-reported outcome data, lab results, data from devices such as wireless electronic weighing scales or collected passively from a smartphone.
Definition
The term "personal health record" is not new. The term was used as early as June 1978,and in 1956, reference was made to a "personal health log." The term "PHR" may be applied to both paper-based and computerized systems;currentusage usually implies an electronic application used to collect and store health data. In the early 2000s, healthcare industry organizations began to propose formal definitions of the term, for example:
 The Personal Health Record (PHR) is an Internet-based set of tools that allows people to access and coordinate their lifelong health information and make appropriate parts of it available to those who need it. PHRs offer an integrated and comprehensive view of health information, including information people generate themselves such as symptoms and medication use, information from doctors such as diagnoses and test results, and information from their pharmacies and insurance companies.

— Markle Foundation's Personal Health Working Group, Connecting for Health (2003)

The personal health record (PHR) is an electronic, universally available, lifelong resource of health information needed by individuals to make health decisions. Individuals own and manage the information in the PHR, which comes from healthcare providers and the individual. The PHR is maintained in a secure and private environment, with the individual determining rights of access. The PHR is separate from and does not replace the legal record of any provider.

— AHIMA e-HIM Personal Health Record Work Group (2005)

The industry model personal health record (PHR) is a private, secure web-based tool maintained by an insurer that contains claims and administrative information. PHRs may also include information that is entered by consumers themselves, as well as data from other sources such as pharmacies, labs, and care providers. PHRs enable individual patients and their designated caregivers to view and manage health information and play a greater role in their own health care.

— America's Health Insurance Plans (2006)
It is important to note that PHRs are not the same as electronic health records (EHRs) or electronic medical records (EMRs), which are software systems designed for use by health care providers. Like the data recorded in paper-based medical records, the data in EHRs are legally mandated notes on the care provided by clinicians to patients. There is no legal mandate that compels a consumer or patient to store her personal health information in a PHR.
PHRs can contain a diverse range of data, including but not limited to:
  • allergies and adverse drug reactions
  • chronic diseases
  • family history
  • illnesses and hospitalizations
  • imaging reports (e.g. X-ray)
  • laboratory test results
  • medications and dosing
  • prescription record
  • surgeries and other procedures
  • vaccinations
  • and observations of daily living (ODLs)
There are two methods by which data can arrive in a PHR. A patient may enter it directly, either by typing into fields or uploading/transmitting data from a file or another website. The second is when the PHR is tethered to an electronic health record, which automatically updates the PHR. Not all PHRs have the same capabilities, and individual PHRs may support one or all of these methods.
In addition to storing an individual's personal health information, some PHRs provide added-value services such as drug-drug interaction checking, electronic messaging between patients and providers, managing appointments, and reminders.

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