What is a Personal Health Record (PHR)?

The PHR is a tool that you can use to collect, track and share past and current information about your health or the health of someone in your care. Sometimes this information can save you the money and inconvenience of repeating routine medical tests. Even when routine procedures do need to be repeated, your PHR can give medical care providers more insight into your personal health story. Remember, you are ultimately responsible for making decisions about your health. A PHR can help you accomplish that.

Important points to know about a Personal Health Record:
•You should always have access to your complete health information.
•Information in your PHR should be accurate, reliable, and complete.
•You should have control over how your health information is accessed, used, and disclosed.
•A PHR may be separate from and does not normally replace the legal medical record of any provider.

Medical records and your personal health record (PHR) are not the same thing. Medical records contain information about your health compiled and maintained by each of your healthcare providers. A PHR is information about your health compiled and maintained by you. The difference is in how you use your PHR to improve the quality of your healthcare.

Take an active role in monitoring your health and healthcare by creating your own PHR. PHRs are an inevitable and critical step in the evolution of health information management (HIM). The book “Personal Health Record” assists new users of PHRs in getting started, addressing current PHR trends and processes.

The American Health Information Management Association explain what PHR contain, how it is used, what can you do with it and how it work.

Link: http://www.myphr.com/StartaPHR/what_is_a_phr.aspx

Credit: The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)