To prepare:
- Reflect on the information presented in the Learning Resources, focusing on personal health records and patient portals as used by the VA.
- Consider your personal and professional experiences with personal health records and patient portals.
- What benefits, concerns, and challenges do these types of systems bring to the health care profession? How might they influence your professional practice and your patient’s health outcomes?
- Explore one patient portal. If you do not have access to one through your practice setting, utilize a free service such as FollowMyHealth http://followmyhealth.jardogs.com/ or Microsoft HealthVault http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/healthvault/.
- Assess the kind of information that you would put in your own personal health record. What concerns (if any) would you have about the security of your personal information in a personal health record?
- Think about your stance on the value of PHRs. Do you believe that every individual should be required to maintain a PHR?
- What capabilities and/or features might entice people to use them?
- What factors might inhibit people from using them?
- Personal health records via patient portals are part of Meaningful Use 2 and the debate over mandating them is essentially over.
- What capabilities and/or features might motivate individuals to maintain PHRs?
- What factors may deter individuals from signing up for this service?
- What concerns might you and your patients have about a PHR’s capability to securely maintain personal information?
- How might PHRs influence your professional practice and your patients’ health outcomes, positively or negatively?
- Review Chapter 16, “Personal Health Record: Managing Personal Health”