Usage patterns of a personal health record by elderly and disabled users

Abstract

Personal Health Records (PHRs) are increasingly recognized as a strategy to improve patient-provider communication, availability of health information, and quality of care, by making the delivery of care more patient-centered. However, not much is known about the effects of self-managing personal health information (PeHI), patients' perception of PeHI and patient workflow around PeHI management. We studied PHR use in a low-income, elderly and/or disabled population for 18 months, and describe how the PHR was used through an analysis of database access server log data. Some patients may not keep their PHR up-to-date because they don't value, can't access, or don't understand certain categories of their health information. Understanding of usage patterns can guide the development and maintenance of more usable and pragmatic PHR systems.

Figure 1

PeHI categories and their elements (elements with * denotes free-text fields).

Figure 2

Distribution of the number of users by the number of categories that have at least one HIU.

Figure 3

Distribution of users by the number of HIUs they entered in an 18 month period.