Are PHRs the next disruptive force in health care?
The Center for Information Therapy (IxCenter) holds periodic public webinars in addition to our monthly IxInsights webinars for IxAction Alliance members. Typically, we get 20-40 participants for these sessions. Yesterday, we sent out a notice about a webinar we’re holding on January 23 on “Personal Health Records (PHRs) and Information Therapy: Transforming Health Care.“ Less than 24 hours later, more than 100 people have signed up.
I’m certainly not the first person to suggest that PHRs have the potential to be a major disruptive force in health care, but there are many reasons to believe that the hype behind this “next thing” actually has some legs. Although the focus of many health information technology (HIT) advocates over the last few years has been on the provider or system-oriented electronic health record (EHR), it’s the PHR that actually has the potential to dramatically change the organization of health care delivery.
Direct access to, and control over, one’s personal health information (PHI) could be another catalyst in the democratization of health care, similar to the way that the Internet has democratized information flow (regarding health and everything else).
However, also like the Internet, the PHR’s potential may be limited in health care if we don’t find ways to make PHI more than a series of data points swirling around some consumer portal. The PHI must be conveyed so that it is understandable, usable and meaningful to the average consumer. If it exists in a vacuum, it will have limited utility.
One of the critical aspects of information therapy (Ix) is figuring out how to contextualize the PHI by connecting it to content. Moreover, those who have a stake in consumers using PHRs to better manage their health need to think about how to deliver proactive streams of information targeted to consumers’ specific moments in care and tailored to their individual needs. This dual functionality–contextualization and bidirectional communication–is critical to enabling PHRs to fulfill their promise.
It would be valuable for the audience of this blog to hear some stories from consumers and clinicians about how this has played out.
–Josh
April 1, 2007 at 3:17 am
Research from a patient population REQUIRES both the consent of each owner of his/her own PHR as well as institutional review board approval prior to the contact. There is no inherent right on the part of providers with databases to skip the ethical foundations of medical research.
August 22, 2009 at 11:08 pm
[...] Other Ways to Change the World. I must also confess that I’m partly responsible for the recent entry on PHRs as I’ll be a presenter with Josh at a webinar for the Center on PHRs and Information Therapy [...]