“Imagine my surprise the other day when I dropped by my local pharmacy and found—among the mints, candy bars, lip balm, and other impulse purchase items— a $20 USB-based wallet card designed for consumers to hold a variety of their own personal health record data: emergency information, physician numbers, medications, test results, diagnostic scans, and even living wills. Though this simple tool doesn’t measure up to the personal health record (PHR) vision articulated by Project HealthDesign: the PHR as tool for action that enables consumers to understand and significantly contribute to their own health and associated records—the discovery nonetheless prompts a few questions. Has the personal health record (PHR) concept reached some sort of tipping point? Are those of us who think and write about PHRs perhaps over-thinking what will capture consumers’ imaginations? Are PHRs just another medical commodity?”
Article
Jason Rothstein and Lygeia Ricciardi, Project HealthDesign Blog, 14 September 2009
