Personal health records (PHRs)

A personal health record is a record controlled by the patient in the service of the patient. This is different from a patient portal, a web site providing the patient with access to the records that clincians are creating to work with other clinicians. (See PHRs and Patients Portals.)

According to the Markle Foundation, the ideal PHR should have the following properties:

• Each person controls his or her own PHR.  Individuals decide which parts of their PHR can be accessed, by whom and for how long.
• PHRs contain information from one’s entire lifetime.
• PHRs contain information from all health care providers.
• PHRs are accessible from any place at any time.
• PHRs are private and secure.
• PHRs are “transparent.” Individuals can see who entered each piece of data, where it was transferred from and who has viewed it.
• PHRs permit easy exchange of information with other health information systems and health professionals.

See Connecting Americans to their Healthcare. Final Report of the Working Group on Policies for Electronic Information Sharing Between Doctors and Patients.

To learn more about PHRs, read our guides:

• for patients
• for hospital executives
• for CIOs
• for programmers
• for clinicians
• for researchers