Your Patient Has a Personal Health Record (PHR)Now What?You are the nurse in a busy family practice clinic. A new patient presents with a personal health record (PHR). This is the first time that you have encountered a PHR. What are the advantages to PHRs? What are ways that you may access the patients PHR? What may be some obstacles that you encounter?Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Personal Health Records (PHRs)Personal Health RecordsThe interest in personal health records (PHRs) is part of the digital revolution, and some consider this a transformation and a natural progression. Heath information technology (HIT) has brought tools to the consumer that makes this progression possible. Patients and their families want more access to health records. We have come a long way from the days when nurses were not allowed to share blood pressure readings with patients (for fear of upsetting them and making the reading go higher) to today, when patients are provided with a printout of their encounter with the provider prior to leaving the healthcare setting.Personal health records provide a private, secure application where the individual may access, manage, and share his or her information with selected and authorized individuals. PHRs result in patients engagement in their care, and promote efficiency and quality. You will find a list of attributes of an ideal personal health record in Hebda and Czar (2013, p. 326)CONNECTING FOR HEALTH COMMON FRAMEWORK, 2006 MARKLE FOUNDATIONAttributes of an Ideal Personal Health Record
1.Each person controls his or her own PHR.
2.PHRs contain information from ones entire lifetime.
3.PHRs contain information from all healthcare providers.
4.PHRs are accessible from any place at any time.
5.PHRs are private and secure.
6.PHRs are transparent. Individuals can see who entered each piece of data, where it was transferred from, and who has viewed it.
7.PHRs permit easy exchange of information across healthcare systems.HEBDA, TONI LEE; CZAR, PATRICIA, HANDBOOK OF INFORMATICS FOR NURSES & HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS, 5th Edition, 2013. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.