Electronic Health Records For Dummies

Personal health records

A personal health record (PHR) is exactly what its name implies — a record that keeps track of a patient’s personal health history. Not to be confused with EHR (which is the documentation of the healthcare provider), PHR content is owned and, ideally, managed by the patient. There is a fair amount of confusion in the marketplace between patient portal and PHR, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but unlike the EHR versus EMR debate, these two are materially different:

PHR data is managed and maintained by the patient. The information contained in PHR can come from the individual and her healthcare providers and is made accessible to anyone the patient chooses. Like EHR, PHR is stored and maintained in a secure electronic environment. Though a patient can choose to make PHR accessible through the provider’s EHR, it remains a separate entity.

Patient portals provide view only access to patient information contained in EHR. The information in a patient portal is owned by the practice and can’t be changed by the patient. Patient portals usually provide added functionality beyond view only access to health information.

As with anything else, when you talk with vendors about their patient access solutions, understand the capabilities and prioritize what makes sense for your practice; don’t worry too much about whether it’s named PHR.

Many of your patients may retain their health information in paper-based, PC-based, or Web-based environments, though ...