Week 4: Your Patient has a PHR (Personal Health Record)... Now What?
Patient portals and personal health records (PHRs) are commonplace today. What are
... [Show More] the pros and cons of having a PHR? What safeguards and decision-making support tools are included in patient portals and PHRs to help patients and healthcare professionals ensure safety?
Professor and Class,
“Personal health records provide a private, secure application where the individual may access, manage, and share his information with selected/authorized individuals.” (CCN, 2017). Personal health records or also called PHR’s are becoming more prominent in healthcare and prove to be very beneficial. With the use of PHR the patient could have 24/7 access to their medical information. The patient can also share this current and up to date information with whomever they choose such as other providers or caregivers. [Heb13]. PHR’s help keep the patient well informed and it can encourage the patient to be more involved and engaged in their health.
Additionally, the use of PHR decreases patient wait time for results. I once worked in an internal medicine office in which our patients were able to utilize PHR and sometimes the patient received their blood work results the same day with a summary of the physician’s comments and review of the information attached to those results. Furthermore, with patients able to receive their results electronically this decreased both our incoming and outgoing telephone calls and letters. This was very beneficial and while decreasing my and the other nurses telephone use this allowed time for more patient care for patients physically in the office.
Another great benefit the PHR provides is the ability for the patient to keep track of their healthcare. Patients can view appointments and set appointment reminders. More importantly they can view all their current and past medications. One specific advantage I encountered was the use of PHR with my hearing impaired and deaf patients. PHR was particularly useful to these patients and some of these patient’s did not want to be contacted any other way. Although Personal Health Records provide many benefits it does come with some disadvantages as well. In order to use the PHR you must be able to access it and a lot of times this requires a smart phone or computer and internet. Also, the patient has to be able to understand how to utilize this tool. Some of the patient’s I encountered wanted to use PHR but did not have the tools to do so and some patients had the tools but had little understanding on how to use the PHR or even the device required to use it. “Patient education and active engagement in the use of PHRs is essential for success.” (Lester, M., Boateng, S., Studeny, J., & Coustasse, A., 2016). The facility wanted us to promote the PHR, but gave us very little time or no time to educate the patient on how to use it. They instead told us to provide a pamphlet with a help desk number. Additionally, some patients who received their results even with the physician’s review comments and instructions became very confused, concerned, and sometimes fearful. Some patients would put aside the physician’s recommendations and look up their results on unreliable internet sources and ultimately become very upset and concerned they have something else going on.
Similarly the results would be available for the patient to view automatically after 24 hours even if the physician had not yet review them or addressed them in the computer. This became an issue and allowed a very sensitive test result to be sent to the patient before they had the chance to call them with the news. With more patients using PHR it also added to the computer workload and required clinicians to be on the computer more. Physicians began taking their
computer’s home and even with them into exam rooms which would be fine if they were using it for the patient appointment they were with, but we found some of them completing other patient messages during a patient’s appointment. Patient privacy and making sure the health information is protected is key when using PHR’s. The patient must login to their PHR using a username and password that they create. When the patient requests to gain access to set up a PHR our system would provide us with an individual code usually made of random numbers and letters. We would then provide this code to the patient at the checkout window. This code gives the patient access to begin set up of their account. The code is temporary and the patient only has 48 hours to use the code to access their account and set up their own username and password. This ensures that the patient is the only one who can access their account and the only one who knows their password unless they choose to share this information with someone. Also the PHR is secure and all messages sent from the patient to the physician are encrypted. Additionally all of the physician’s laptops and tablets were encrypted to ensure safety.
References:
Chamberlain College of Nursing. (2017). RN361 Information Systems in Healthcare: Week 4 lesson. Downers Grove, IL: Online Publication. DeVry Education Group.
Lester, M., Boateng, S., Studeny, J., & Coustasse, A. (2016). Personal Health Records: Beneficial or Burdensome for Patients and Healthcare Providers? Perspectives in Health Information Management, 13(spring), 1h.
Hebda, T., & Czar, P. (2013). Handbook of informatics for nurses & healthcare professionals (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
DB post Response #2
Hey Ruth, I really enjoyed reading your posting of this week’s discussion. I completely agree Personal Health Record’s or PHR can be very beneficial to the patient in addition to clinicians. The patient is able to access to their records at any time and more importantly can view their current medication list. Working in a physician’s office this was one of the main issues we encountered a majority of the patients were not aware what medications they were taking. When I first started in nursing we were still using paper charting and would make an end of visit summary on paper for each patient that contained a list of all the medications they taking and how these should be taking them. This was very time consuming, but I felt it was essential. The PHR is essentially doing the same thing and it is amazing. Actually a couple of months ago while
working at the hospital I was admitting a patient and this patient was not aware of their medications, but was able to pull up their PHR on their smart phone device and show me a current medication list, allergies, and medical history. It is remarkable how far technology and healthcare has come and yet still how far we can still go. Again, Great job, Katelyn. [Show Less]