The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), a professional organization of over 50,000 members, will announce at its annual conference later this month their intent to further educate the public on Personal Health Records (PHR) by hitting the airwaves (PBS and cable news networks).
This is a logical extension of their promotion of the PHR concept, which began about three years ago when they put together myPHR.com, an informative source for those wishing to learn more about what a PHR is and is not.
While I am indeed grateful to AHIMA for putting together myPHR.com and it does have some very good information on this relatively small and nascent market, I am concerned.
Why?
myPHR.com it is far from complete and one section is quite dated.
What’s needed?
- Detailed information on what a consumer should consider in terms of security and privacy features of a given PHR.
- Minimum set of features that a consumer should look for.
- What are the motivations of various sponsors (payer, employer, provider, independent software vendor, etc.) of PHRs and what should one consider in making a final decision as to which PHR to choose.
- Lastly, would love to see AHIMA keep their list of PHR vendors more up to date as several of those in their current list are out of business.
And while they are at it, wouldn’t it be great if the AHIMA would take up the banner on behalf of the consumer and establish a “Good Housekeeping-type” seal of approval for PHRs available today. Such a seal would go beyond the current HON (Health on the Net Foundation) which one often finds on many PHR sites today.
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