Electronic Health Records
Personal Health Records May Not Be So Personal
May 14, 2010iHealthBeat - Personal health records often are touted as a way to engage patients by giving them control over their own health care. However, it turns out that personal health records might not be so personal.
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that PHRs aren't as patient centered as perhaps they should be. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center assessed the patient centeredness of PHR systems at seven large early adopter organizations in 2007. The study, which was supported by the Commonwealth Fund, found that while most of the organizations offered some patient-centered functions, there is still plenty of room for improvement ...
The researchers attributed some of the variance in patient centeredness to state regulations, organizational policies and personal preferences.
Medem -- which in 2009 sold its PHR product to Medfusion -- was the only commercial PHR vendor included in the study.
Reti noted that other commercial PHR products, such as Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault, actually lead the field when it comes to patient-centered functions. He said that because such firms are not considered covered entities under HIPAA, they are not bound by the same privacy and security regulations. Reti said that Google and Microsoft still comply with HIPAA regulations, but they "are able to be more creative and move quicker because they don't require the same sign offs and double checks of HIPAA."
Nir Menachemi -- an associate professor in the Department of Health Care Organization and Policy at the University of Alabama's School of Public Health -- said he did not find the results of the study surprising.
Menachemi said:
"I think at least PHRs I've seen or interacted with myself as a patient are sometimes not patient centered, not because of policies but because of technical issues with how information is processed through the PHR." He added, "I had a PHR previously that I don't really use anymore, partly because there was an overwhelming amount of non-relevant information that was being fed into it from claims data."Reti said that since the study was conducted at the end of 2007, there's been little improvement in the patient centeredness of PHRs. He said that PHRs "are not a mature technology, but they are adopting some maturity, and with maturity what you get is tweaks of features, rather than abundant new features being added."
According to Reti, the next big step for PHRs is opening up clinical notes to patients. He noted that Beth Israel and two other hospitals are conducting a pilot project to provide patients with access to their clinical notes through their PHRs ...
A recent California HealthCare Foundation survey found that just 7% of U.S. adults use a PHR. CHCF is the publisher of iHealthBeat.
Reti said that patients who use PHRs love the technology. He said:
"I can't think of one person who is not feeling they're getting better health care through a personal health record."He said that the tipping point will be driven by consumer pressure. Menahemi said that for the country to reach a tipping point in PHR adoption, "there is going to have to be a lot of education." He noted that many people don't understand what a PHR is.
"Personal health records are a key and fundamental part of contemporary and modern health care systems," Reti said, adding, "I think they'll reach some tipping point, like ATM machine cards."
Menachemi said:
"I teach a graduate course on health IT and when we talk about PHRs, no one in the classroom, many of [whom] are physicians, have even heard of such a thing."
Personal Health Record Use on the Rise in U.S., Survey Finds
April 13, 2010iHealthBeat - Although the number of U.S. residents using personal health records has more than doubled since 2008, usage rates remain relatively low at 7%, according to a survey released Tuesday by the California HealthCare Foundation, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. CHCF is the publisher of iHealthBeat.
Lake Research Partners conducted the survey of about 1,850 U.S. residents in December 2009 and January 2010 ...
The survey found that younger, highly educated individuals with higher incomes are more likely to use PHRs.
However, researchers noted that low-income people with less education and multiple chronic conditions are likely to reap greater benefits from the technology (Mearian, ComputerWorld, 4/13).
The survey also found that 40% of people without access to PHRs expressed interest in using such tools (Gruenwald, Tech Daily Dose, 4/13).
When non-PHR users were asked about how they would like to access a PHR:
58% cited their health care provider;
50% cited their health plan;
36% cited Medicare or another government group;
35% cited a not-for-profit organization;
25% cited a third-party organization such as Google or Microsoft; and
25% cited their employer (Kolbasuk McGee, Information Week, 4/13).
The survey also found that 68% of respondents expressed concerns about medical privacy in PHRs (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 4/13).
However, among those who use PHRs, 47% said that they are "not too worried" about their data privacy while 11% said they were "very worried" (Vesely, Modern Healthcare, 4/13).
Michael Perry, partner at Lake Research Partners, added that 66% of respondents said privacy concerns should not hinder efforts to adopt new technology designed to improve care (Enrado, Healthcare IT News, 4/13).
Most Hospital CIOs See EHR Adoption as a Top Priority, Survey Finds
May 7, 2010iHealthBeat.org - Electronic health record adoption is the top priority for most hospital CIOs over the next two years, but it ranks further down the IT priority list for hospital IT directors and managers, according to a survey, InformationWeek reports.
The survey -- commissioned by Hewlett Packard and conducted by NewGrowth Consulting -- included 36 CIOs and 142 IT directors and managers at hospitals with 200 or more beds.
Of the hospital CIOs, the survey found that 58% cited EHR projects as their top priority over the next two years ...
Report: Health IT to Play Key Role in Health System Transformation
April 12, 2010iHealthBeat.org - Ninety percent of U.S. health care leaders and 84% of global health care leaders expect IT to play a "key factor" in health care system changes in the coming decade, according to a new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute, Healthcare IT News reports (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 4/9).
The report, released last week, surveyed nearly 600 government and health industry leaders in more than 20 countries about the future of health care.
According to the survey, new health information systems, technologies and tools will be developed and implemented to provide patients with more control over their own health care.
David Chin, director of PwC's Health Research Institute, said that mobile technology and the Internet will become important tools. He added that health information also will be increasingly spread via social networking websites (Kelland, Reuters, 4/6).
In addition, PwC found that one-third of consumers surveyed said they would consider health care delivered over the phone or Internet. Meanwhile, 50% of the health care leaders said they are working to expand access to care to patients' homes.
By 2020, health systems are expected to mainly use electronic health records controlled by individuals, a shift away from the paper-based medical records predominantly used in health systems today, according to the report.
Of the health leaders surveyed, 90% said greater use of EHRs would make health care systems more efficient and effective. However, they acknowledged that EHR implementation would be costly (Simmons, HealthLeaders Media, 4/7).
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