Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Jan 6;19(1):e13.
doi: 10.2196/jmir.5876.

Personal Health Records: A Systematic Literature Review

Alex Roehrs  1 , Cristiano André da Costa  1 , Rodrigo da Rosa Righi  1 , Kleinner Silva Farias de Oliveira  1
Affiliations

Personal Health Records: A Systematic Literature Review

Alex Roehrs et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Information and communication technology (ICT) has transformed the health care field worldwide. One of the main drivers of this change is the electronic health record (EHR). However, there are still open issues and challenges because the EHR usually reflects the partial view of a health care provider without the ability for patients to control or interact with their data. Furthermore, with the growth of mobile and ubiquitous computing, the number of records regarding personal health is increasing exponentially. This movement has been characterized as the Internet of Things (IoT), including the widespread development of wearable computing technology and assorted types of health-related sensors. This leads to the need for an integrated method of storing health-related data, defined as the personal health record (PHR), which could be used by health care providers and patients. This approach could combine EHRs with data gathered from sensors or other wearable computing devices. This unified view of patients' health could be shared with providers, who may not only use previous health-related records but also expand them with data resulting from their interactions. Another PHR advantage is that patients can interact with their health data, making decisions that may positively affect their health.

Objective: This work aimed to explore the recent literature related to PHRs by defining the taxonomy and identifying challenges and open questions. In addition, this study specifically sought to identify data types, standards, profiles, goals, methods, functions, and architecture with regard to PHRs.

Methods: The method to achieve these objectives consists of using the systematic literature review approach, which is guided by research questions using the population, intervention, comparison, outcome, and context (PICOC) criteria.

Results: As a result, we reviewed more than 5000 scientific studies published in the last 10 years, selected the most significant approaches, and thoroughly surveyed the health care field related to PHRs. We developed an updated taxonomy and identified challenges, open questions, and current data types, related standards, main profiles, input strategies, goals, functions, and architectures of the PHR.

Conclusions: All of these results contribute to the achievement of a significant degree of coverage regarding the technology related to PHRs.

Keywords: electronic health records; mobile health; patient access to records; personal health records; taxonomy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Personal health record (PHR) and electronic health record (EHR) relationships. IoT: Internet of Things.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Systematic mapping study—article selection. SciELO: Scientific Electronic Library Online.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Publication chronology. The numbers above years indicate the number of articles published. Oxford: Oxford University Press; JMIR: JMIR Publications; IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; BioMed: BioMed Central; MLA: Medical Library Association; ACM: Association for Computing Machinery; ACP: American College of Physicians.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Quality assessment of the articles.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Baird A, North F, Raghu T. Personal Health Records (PHR) and the Future of the Physician-patient Relationship. Proceedings of the 2011 iConference; iConference '11; February 2011; Seattle. New York: ACM; 2011. Feb, pp. 281–288. - DOI
    1. Gunter TD, Terry NP. The emergence of national electronic health record architectures in the United States and Australia: models, costs, and questions. J Med Internet Res. 2005 Mar;7(1):e3. doi: 10.2196/jmir.7.1.e3. http://www.jmir.org/2005/1/e3/ v7e3 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brennan PF, Downs S, Casper G. Project HealthDesign: rethinking the power and potential of personal health records. J Biomed Inform. 2010 Oct;43(5 Suppl):S3–5. doi: 10.1016/j.jbi.2010.09.001. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1532-0464(10)00133-4 S1532-0464(10)00133-4 - DOI - PubMed
    1. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ISO. [2016-04-13]. Health informatics - Electronic health record - Definition, scope and context. ISO. Switzerland: ISO; 2005. https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:tr:20514:ed-1:v1:en:en .
    1. Castillo VH, Martínez-García AI, Pulido JR. A knowledge-based taxonomy of critical factors for adopting electronic health record systems by physicians: a systematic literature review. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2010 Oct;10:60. doi: 10.1186/1472-6947-10-60. http://bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6947... 1472-6947-10-60 - DOI - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types