Introduction
The development of healthcare systems worldwide increasingly focuses on patients’ degree of medical literacy. There are many ways to gauge this level, and efforts are made to raise it because doing so improves the standard of medical care and lowers the cost of providing it. For health systems in many nations, increasing health literacy is a significant challenge. The World Health Organization defines health literacy as having the knowledge and applying health information to make judgments and decisions in daily life regarding health care (Stormacq et al., 2018). The impact of physician adoption of electronic health records (EHR) on patient access to personal health records (PHRs) is discussed in the article.
The Importance of Electronic Health Records for Patient Access to Personal Health Records
Emphasizing that patients support the PHR and is not a part of the official medical record, the PHR is an electronic resource that patients use to make educated decisions about their health. The impact of health literacy on the adoption and use of PHRs is another significant issue raised by the article. To make wise decisions about one’s health, one must possess health literacy, which is the capacity to acquire, process, and comprehend basic health information (Noblin et al., 2012). It is critical to realize that poor health literacy can result in undesirable outcomes like protracted and frequent hospital stays, ER visits, and poor management of chronic illnesses.
Patients increasingly need tools to manage their health and medical data actively. The survey’s findings, which show that most patients (74 percent) expressed a desire to utilize PHR, provide an essential conclusion for the paper (Noblin et al., 2012). This indicates how eager and ready patients are to embrace cutting-edge digital health solutions.
Using PHR and enhancing one’s health literacy can be considered strategies to take responsibility for one’s physical well-being, which aligns with biblical values (Eddy, 1994). Considering this, it is crucial to fulfill this demand, but it is much more necessary to have people ready for it. This statistic also emphasizes the significance of healthcare professionals and doctors considering offering PHR to their patients. Additionally, PHR will strengthen doctor-patient engagement, boost the quality of treatment, and save expenses.
Traditionally, healthcare organizations may have thought that patients with less knowledge or older patients could need help adopting PHR or other digital solutions. However, this study’s findings show that these demographic traits are only sometimes a deterrent to PHR use. There is little association between patients’ willingness to use personal health records and their education level, age, or income (Noblin et al., 2012). This indicates that there is interest in using cutting-edge digital health technologies like PHR among patients with lesser levels of education, older ages, and poorer incomes.
Patients’ willingness to use PHRs is an essential factor in their perception of health literacy. This means patients can feel reasonably confident in their ability to understand and use health information, even with limited education or advanced age. When implementing PHR, attention should be paid to patient characteristics and their perceptions of their health skills and knowledge. (Abd-Alrazaq et al., 2019) Organizations might enhance health literacy and patient trust in their capacity to use contemporary healthcare technologies to successfully adopt PHR and enhance communication between patients and healthcare professionals.
Conclusion
In conclusion, PHRs are essential for improving interactions between patients and healthcare providers and raising patient involvement in their health management. Most patients are interested in utilizing PHRs, which reflects the expanding need for digital health solutions. Notably, the key predictors of the desire to use PHR are only sometimes characteristics like education, age, or income. What matters most is how patients view their level of medical literacy. Providing access to PHR encourages healthcare organizations to alter their instructional strategies.
References
Abd-Alrazaq, A., Bewick, B. M., Farragher, T., & Gardner, P. (2019). Factors that affect the use of electronic personal health records among patients: A systematic review. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 126, 164–175. Web.
Eddy, M. B. (2021). Science and health: With Key to the Scriptures. Writings of Mary Baker Eddy.
Noblin, A., Wan, T. T. H., & Fottler, M. D. (2012). The impact of health literacy on a patient’s decision to adopt a personal health record. PubMed. Web.
Stormacq, C., Van Den Broucke, S., & Wosinski, J. (2019). Does health literacy mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status and health disparities? Integrative review. Health Promotion International, 34(5), e1–e17. Web.
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