Personal health records: is rapid adoption hindering interoperability?

The establishment of the Meaningful Use criteria has created a critical need for robust interoperability of health records. A universal definition of a personal health record (PHR) has not been agreed upon. Standardized code sets have been built for specific entities, but integration between them has not been supported. The purpose of this research study was to explore the hindrance and promotion of interoperability standards in relationship to PHRs to describe interoperability progress in this area. The study was conducted following the basic principles of a systematic review, with 61 articles used in the study. Lagging interoperability has stemmed from slow adoption by patients, creation of disparate systems due to rapid development to meet requirements for the Meaningful Use stages, and rapid early development of PHRs prior to the mandate for integration among multiple systems. Findings of this study suggest that deadlines for implementation to capture Meaningful Use incentive payments are supporting the creation of PHR data silos, thereby hindering the goal of high-level interoperability.

[1]  Jessica Pipersburgh.  The push to increase the use of EHR technology by hospitals and physicians in the United States through the HITECH Act and the Medicare incentive program. , 2011, Journal of health care finance.

[2]  Catherine R Selden,et al.  Characteristics of personal health records: findings of the Medical Library Association/National Library of Medicine Joint Electronic Personal Health Record Task Force. , 2010, Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA.

[3]  Kenneth D. Mandl,et al.  Viewpoint Paper: Early Experiences with Personal Health Records , 2008, J. Am. Medical Informatics Assoc..

[4]  D. Dwyer,et al.  The impact of consumer health information on the demand for health services , 2013 .

[5]  M. Wynia,et al.  Dreams and Nightmares: Practical and Ethical Issues for Patients and Physicians Using Personal Health Records , 2010, Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.

[6]  Alberto Coustasse,et al.  Impact of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies on the hospital supply chain: a literature review. , 2013, Perspectives in health information management.

[7]  Robert A Greenes,et al.  Personal health records. , 2005, The Journal of medical practice management : MPM.

[8]  Micah B. Hartman,et al.  National health spending in 2011: overall growth remains low, but some payers and services show signs of acceleration. , 2013, Health affairs.

[9]  William R Doucette,et al.  Family physician perceptions of personal health records. , 2010, Perspectives in health information management.

[10]  Stephen Downs,et al.  Project HealthDesign: Rethinking the power and potential of personal health records , 2010, J. Biomed. Informatics.

[11]  P HufnagelStephen.  National Electronic Health Record Interoperability Chronology , 2014 .

[12]  Gail Graham,et al.  Evaluating Patient Access to Electronic Health Records: Results From a Survey of Veterans , 2013, Medical care.

[13]  Sharon E. Straus,et al.  Personal health records: a scoping review , 2011, J. Am. Medical Informatics Assoc..

[14]  Paul C Tang,et al.  Your doctor's office or the Internet? Two paths to personal health records. , 2009, The New England journal of medicine.

[15]  Jessica S. Ancker,et al.  Rapid Growth in Use of Personal Health Records in New York, 2012–2013 , 2014, Journal of general internal medicine.

[16]  Zang Li,et al.  The use of RFID in healthcare: Benefits and barriers , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on RFID-Technology and Applications.

[17]  A. Coustasse,et al.  Electronic prescribing: improving the efficiency and accuracy of prescribing in the ambulatory care setting. , 2014, Perspectives in health information management.

[18]  Steven J. Fenves,et al.  Healthcare Strategic Focus Area: Clinical Informatics , 2005 .

[19]  Robert A. Agnew,et al.  Solutions , 1899, The Mathematical Gazette.

[20]  Richard R Rogoski.  Bridging the EHR divide. Hospitals, physician practices work toward true interoperability. , 2012, Healthcare informatics : the business magazine for information and communication systems.

[21]  Paul C. Tang,et al.  Integrated Personal Health Records: Transformative Tools for Consumer-Centric Care , 2008, BMC Medical Informatics Decis. Mak..

[22]  Adam Wright,et al.  USB-based Personal Health Records: An analysis of features and functionality , 2010, Int. J. Medical Informatics.

[23]  A. Coustasse,et al.  Expanding technology in the ICU: the case for the utilization of telemedicine. , 2014, Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association.

[24]  Eric C. Pan,et al.  The value of health care information exchange and interoperability. , 2005, Health affairs.

[25]  David W. Bates,et al.  History and Trends of "Personal Health Record" Research in PubMed , 2011, Healthcare informatics research.

[26]  Thomas A. Horan,et al.  Personal health records , 2011, Health Informatics J..

[27]  Olaronke Iroju,et al.  Interoperability in Healthcare: Benefits, Challenges and Resolutions , 2013 .