Exceptional Experiences at Community Health Network

I wanted to clarify a few terms that I will probably discuss frequently in this blog so that everyone is clear on exactly what I mean when I use these terms. I have heard these referred to interchangeably when they really need to be distinctly separate things and I think there is a lot of confusion about what is being discussed when the terms are used.

Personal Health Record (PHR) – This is the record(s) that a patient keeps about themselves or a family member. The sole authority on what is put in a patient’s PHR is determined by the patient or family member.

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) – This is the record(s) that the health care provider (hospital, doctor, nurse, etc) keep about a patient. The authority on what is put in a patient’s EMR is determined by the health care professional.

Ideally, both the patient and health care professional would be able to view both records and control what is added to the record that they have authority over. Currently, only about 4% of people have a PHR (I can’t remember where I read that statistic.) and generally patients are able to view their EMR. I think the trend is moving toward the ideal state where both patient and health care professional can view each others’ records.

Today the personal health record is at the infancy stage. In most applications, the user is asked to enter data about their demographics, conditions, medications, etc. either by selecting items from lists or by typing the information into text boxes. This data entry process reminds me of older versions of the personal finance programs in which there was no ability to download information from financial institutions. I tried it for awhile and it quickly became tedious to enter data in my checkbook and on the computer. I think the same thing will happen with these personal health records and I believe that this is part of the reason that the adoption rate/usage of personal health records is low today.

I believe that the optimal path to adding personal health data to a profile is that the user will find a page in a health content library and link it to their profile.

In a Pew Internet Health Resources report, they found that 80% of adult Internet users have searched for health information online. Users will engage in information seeking behavior before adding data to their profile. Instead of capturing the data later, this concept will allow the user to associate the data to their profile at the moment they are reading about it. Any additional data specific to the user can also be added. In addition, their profile will be linked to the health content they found originally. The application should minimize the amount of data that the user needs to enter.

In addition the personal record should be viewed as an extension of the users existing health profile. The application should use data the user already entered in registering on a site and in addition should use data from the personal health record to fill in that information where ever else it is required on the site so that the user does not need to re-enter data that they have already entered once. Also, the user should be able to print that data to present it to the physician.

To see a working example of these characteristics in a personal health record, visit http://www.eCommunity.com/mycommunity/phr/. The Greystone consumer health content library along with a medication guide is being used to provide the source material for the user. Users can associate pages within each of these libraries to their profile and enter any additional information they wish. Our goal is to create a site that non-members can use to get their health information but members can customize the entire site by associating health information to their profile.

The ultimate goal for a personal health record should be to provide a location where the user is able to pull data out of their electronic medical record and add it to their profile. In addition, that user is able to add data to their profile that is visible by their healthcare providers. I don’t think that this will happen in the near future but I believe that is the direction that the consumerism movement is heading with regards to personal health information.

This entry was originally posted on Webiscope at What’s in your Personal Health Record?

…I now have more time to start blogging.

The title of this blog comes from the meme that I have frequently heard that health care technology is five years behind other industries. I have heard this many times from many different sources. The goal is to discuss technology that is happening today in other industries and how it can apply to health care.

My name is Michael and I am a Senior Web Developer for Community Health Network. I develop the applications that run these web sites. I have focused on the Internet sites we maintain, including eCommunity.com and hearthopital.com.

I have always tried to look to other industries for ideas about what we can do on our web sites. If the five years behind idea is a truism, then by focusing on only what is happening in health care our group will be constantly trying to catch up or stay current with other health care web sites. By looking at what other industries are doing, we can be more innovative and work on projects that use current ideas for health care uses.

One clear example of a technology we are trying out for health care is blogging as evidenced by this blog itself. We wanted to try it out and see how we can talk about health care issues and not violate HIPAA rules and not allow competitors to see what we are doing before we have completed it. Transparency is a new trend but transparency in health care can be tricky especially when it comes to patient privacy. Mistakes in health care can be more serious that a software bug or not shipping a purchase. It involves patients’ lives and health, obviously.

We are also working on podcasting and RSS feeds. We have implemented some but are moving slowly so that they are integrated into our website, are easy to use and make sense to the user. We don’t implement technology just to do it, but we want to insure that the user can find it, understand it and easily use it.

I plan to discuss health care topics, challenges with implementing technology, projects we have put into production and anything else I think would be of interest to health care technology readers.