Keeping Track of Personal Health Record

As the very name suggests Personal Health Record is systematic record consisting every possible and important health related data or information maintained by the patient. The main objective behind maintaining keeping PHR is to be able to provide accurate and complete summary of every medical condition or issue of a patient which can be accessible online. The health data on a PHR might include patient-reported outcome data, lab results and earlier medical history that can provide valuable information and assistance in diagnosing treatment of any medical issue faced by the patient. The earliest mention of the term was in an article indexed by PubMed dated June 1978, and even earlier in 1956. Most of the scientific articles written about PHRs have been published since 2000.

It is important to note that PHRs are not the same as Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The latter are software systems designed for use by institutions such as hospitals, and contain data entered by clinicians. There are two methods by which data can be stored or contained efficiently in a PersonalHealth Record. Firstly, a patient may enter it directly by typing into fields, uploading from a file or from another website. The second is the PHR is tethered to an electronic health record, which automatically updates the PHR.

PHR can contain several significant data of a patient’s medical history like allergies, chronic diseases, vaccination, family medical history, surgeries if any, ODL or Observation of Daily Living, laboratory test reports, prescriptions, previous illnesses, cases of hospitalization etc along with other important information.