Physicians Play Key Role In PHR Acceptance

By John Oncea, Editor

Follow John on Twitter: @buck25

Studies show that personal health records benefit both the patient and the healthcare industry. So why aren’t patients embracing them?

Health IT Outcomes’s Ken Congdon recently wrote, “Revolution Health and Google Health are two high-profile examples of the literally dozens of consumer-based electronic PHR (personal health record) providers to close their doors over the past few years. Many chalked these failures up to a patient community that just wasn’t ready to take responsibility for their own health information.” Congdon notes that a lot has changed in the healthcare industry since then but the question still remains if patients are ready to embrace PHRs.

It doesn’t appear so according to Thomas Jepsen who, writing for SearchHealthIT, notes, “A 2011 study showed fewer than one in 10 Americans had a personal health record, and only about half knew exactly what one was.” Jepsen points out the positive impact patient acceptance of PHRs will have on the healthcare industry, writing, “Widespread adoption of PHRs can play a vital role in moving from a costly healthcare paradigm of treating chronic diseases to an approach based on wellness and prevention that improves quality of life.”

The benefits for patients who utilize PHRs are well documented as well. EHR Intelligence, Institute for Health Technology Transformation, and Government Health IT all published stories in the past two weeks reporting patients were more responsible, engaged, and satisfied when given access to their health records.

So why aren’t patients embracing PHRs? Brian Eastwood compiled a PHR FAQ for SearchHealthIT which offers technical reasons for low PHR adoption rates including:

• concerns about personal health record privacy
• the availability of personal health information in an emergency situation
• the notion that the health care industry's adoption of information technology lags far behind industries such as insurance and banking.

Eastwood also gives reasons that are more philosophical in nature:

• the process of gathering personal health records is a complicated and cumbersome one that could take years
• healthy patients who infrequently visit a doctor have little ePHI to begin with and, so the argument goes, have no interest in managing ePHI
• physicians are not promoting them

Kim M. Nazi, BS, MA, PhD, whose study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research is the basis for many of the current PHR patient s satisfaction stories, set out “to examine the experience of VA health care professionals whose patients use an organizationally sponsored PHR system (My HealtheVet) to develop insights into the interaction of technology and the processes of health care delivery.” Among her conclusion, Nazi writes, “Endorsement and engagement of health care professionals may be essential to fully realize the anticipated benefits of PHRs.”

HTO’s Congdon echoes Eastwood’s and Nazi’s assertion that healthcare professionals need to do more to encourage patient engagement with PHRs, writing, “It’s clear that patients still won’t propel the widespread use of these tools on their own. Health providers will need to play a crucial role in determining the ultimate success of PHR adoption.”