The enormous promise of PHRs

By Patty Enrado,Editor

ORLANDO, Fla. — Personal health records come in all different shapes and sizes. Employers, health plans and vendors offer them. Debate continues over whether they provide value in a continuum of care involving primary care physicians, specialists and other healthcare providers. And if they do, as many would argue, what their role is and how they can provide the most benefit is still evolving.

PHRs are the focus of roundtable session 81, “Personal Health Records: An Industry Update from Various Perspectives,” on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 1 PM in Room 203A.

In this roundtable, Holly Miller, MD, chief medical information officer at Cleveland-based University Hospitals, will discuss a new partnership between patients and physicians as employers and payers extend the pay-for-performance model to consumers in the form of lowered or waived co-pays if they follow their regimens. At the heart of this model is the PHR, which can help guide consumers in chronic disease management and preventative medicine and wellness. “This is how we can really transform healthcare in this country,” said Miller, who chairs the HIMSS PHR Steering Committee, which has drafted a definition and position statement on PHRs.

Miller believes the next-generation PHR — an integrated, interoperable health record — holds much promise.

Miller isn’t the only believer. Zach Finn, vice president of operations for Avocare (Booth 929), said, “By connecting the PHR to an HIE, the application empowers the patient to be able to communicate with their entire healthcare community — from the primary care physician to physician specialists to physician in the ER. One username one password with secure access to all of your healthcare needs.”

Frank Norman, CIO of ActiveHealth Management (Booth 4887), believes real-time integration is a big trend. With employers and payers delivering multiple health management programs such as clinical decision support, disease management, wellness, health risk assessment and value-based insurance design, he said, “Understandably, they want them to all work together and to integrate with their PHR.”

Ilan Freedman, vice president of marketing at dbMotion (Booth 4473), said that PHRs are slowly shedding their image as independent applications prone to inconsistency of data, among other things. “PHRs should be viewed and therefore designed as an extension, or complementary application, to the integration of healthcare information (HIE/interoperability) within and across organizations,” he said. “This holistic approach ensures a solid foundation for a PHR based upon consistent and up-to-date information.”

On the other hand, remote access is an important feature of PHRs, according to Gary Cowsert, president and CEO of Allen Technologies (Booth 3614). “If a patient is using one of the PHR products that are available via the Internet, they may use our system to access their PHR while they are in the hospital, real-time, right from their hospital bed. This critical information could then be shared with the hospital as needed. They may also choose to update their PHR while in the hospital.”

As standards are being created and different PHR models unveiled, one thing is certain: There are enough believers in this application that will ensure its prominent place in the transformation of our healthcare system.

To see other PHR vendors who are exhibiting, go to http://www.himssconference.org/exhibition/default.aspx and search exhibitors by the “personal health records” category.

Posted by Patty Enrado on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 10:12 am
Share:


Click here for RSS 2.0
Comment | Trackback | View blog reactions