Abstract
Personal health records are important for individuals, caregivers and healthcare professionals. On a national level, these records should serve as a part of the National Health Information public services systems. Available websites providing PHR services are developing and variable. The researcher compared three different websites (CapMed, myhealth123.net, and Microsoft health Vault), and concluded that CapMed is most likely to be the easiest, most satisfying to a healthcare consumer.
Introduction
There is a notable increase in the pursuit of imposing personal health records systems for patients and other healthcare consumers. However, the literature does not provide satisfactory description for the possible capacity and efficacy of personal health records (PHR). Further, the lack of displaying the potential widespread use holds back its acceptance (Tang and others, 2006).
The Administration, Congress, Health institutions, and private health insurance companies embarked on many proposals to support carrying out electronic health records. Stevens (2007) defines an electronic personal health record is a database of medical data gathered and kept in a working order by an individual patient. This should serve as a part of the National Health Information public services systems; however, patients caring for the privacy of their health information and privacy supporters raise controversies about security and privacy of information (Stevens, 2007).
Lecker and others (2007) examined the question of privacy and security in electronic personal health records. They defined privacy as a person’s right to getting hold of, use, or revelation of one’s identifiable health data, in other words, it is an individual right that if severed results in abuse. Confidentiality means the commitment to respect privacy by those who receive the information, in this sense it can be dealt with under business contract (purchase or selling).
Security is the technological administrative procedures for information privacy protection of data from illegal disclosure, thus it needs authorization from the person to reveale. The authors inferred there is wide variation among public privacy policies in understanding and imposing. They observed that some personal health record service web sites providers have no declared privacy policy (Lecker and others, 2007).
The aim of this essay is to provide a comparison of three different PHR web sites.
Method of comparison
Two PHR websites were chosen (out of three provided by the essay supervisor) and a third PHR was searched for. Criteria used for comparison are provided by The American Health Information Management Association: Recommendations to Assure Privacy and Quality of Personal Health Information on the Internet.
- Inclusion of a notice of information practices; privacy policy, and security policy.
- Whether the site contains active and suitable links to other health information resources.
- The date or dates a piece of data is first input and then updated is recorded.
- Whether the consumer can print the personal health record.
- Identification of the business owner or provider of the PHR website.
- Does the site provide clear instructions for navigating the PHR?
- Does the site provide support with interpreting any medical abbreviations used within the PHR?
- Does the site provide customer support contact information?
- General comments and grading.
The websites selected for comparison are:
- CapMed .
- MyHealth123.NET.
- Microsoft Health Vault.
Comparison
Comparison of the three different sites is done in a table form. Grading is in A, B… according to the following: (A = excellent, B = good, C = fair, F = fails) for each website on each evaluative criterion provided within the table.
Conclusion
Personal health records system is still developing and diverse. One of the factors contributing to its heterogeneity is the lack of a uniform agreed-upon definition for a personal health record. From the comparison made in this essay, it appears that MedCap PHR system can be the most convenient from the viewpoint of a healthcare consumer.
References
Tang, P.C, Ash, J.S, Bates, D.W, Overhage, J.M, and Sands, D.Z (2006). Personal health records: definitions, benefits, and strategies for overcoming barriers to adoption. J Am Med Inform Assoc., 13(2), 121-126.
Stevens, G.M (2007). CRS Report for Congress: Electronic Personal Health Records. Web.
Lecker, R, Armijo, D, Chin, S et al (2007). Review of the Personal Health Record (PHR) Service Provider Market: privacy and Security. Web.