Health Medical Homework Help

Please reply to this integrating a scholarly article.

There are many benefits to the personal health records (PHR). Personal health records provide a private, secure application where the individual may access, manage, and share information with selected/authorized individuals (Chamberlain University, 2021). This allows the patient to have more access and be more involved with their healthcare. A downside to the PHR is the complexity and the confusion or anxiety it can cause a patient when they don’t understand. Encouraging the patient to be involved, ask for clarification, or search certain terms on the web, will improve their understanding of the PHR. When a patient pays attention to their treatment and becomes more involved, they will start carrying out the instructions you know they have been ignoring in the past like taking all their medications, exercising more, and avoiding bad habits (Al-Ubaydli, 2011). Having this technology available for patients can ultimately reduce the cost of medical expenses due to more compliance by the patient, I think the PHRs are a wonderful idea as long as the patient has resources to help them understand their PHR.

Unfortunately, in this situation, the patient doesn’t have full access to in data she wishes to review with her family. There are different types of PHRs such as standalone, tethered and connected. Standalone PHRs allow the patient to enter their information from their own records and memories while tethered or connected PHRs are linked to a specific health care organization’s EHR system or a health plan’s information system (The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Informaton Technology, n.d.). Having only partial records in this scenario can lead to more confusion by the patient and their family. If the patient has to manually enter their data, there is more room for error and lost information. Although if there is adequate information in the PHR, the patient could also recognize errors by the physician that would’ve been missed otherwise.

The PHR can present many challenges to patients, especially elderly patients. I have read several stories of creating an account for a PHR taking up to 6 months. Personally, I have not attempted a PHR nor have I had it offered by insurance or my healthcare providers. I was offered access to my patient portal by 3 providers and only 1 of them was accessible after multiple attempts. I eventually got frustrated and gave up, I recall one of the facilities requested that you be present and on their facility’s network in order to gain access initially. It came as no surprise to learn that one study concluded that out of 112,893 patients offered the PHR, only 28,910 created an account (Lester, Boateng, Studeny, & Coustasse, 2016). I would’ve been included in the almost 84,000 people that didn’t create an account. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, it’s because it was too difficult. The one patient portal that I was able to gain access to happened only after I contacted a friend in the IT department at that facility. If a patient portal is this challenging, I could only imagine trying to link a PHR. In a perfect world with everthing intertwined, the PHR is a fantastic idea. Even with the technological advances today, meaningful use being enforced, and companies like Apple using their own health apps, I’m still not certain we’re where we need to be to make the PHRs and the EHRs successful.

Al-Ubaydli, M. (2011). Personal Health Records: A Guide for Clinicians. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Chamberlain University. (2021, August). Week 4 lesson: Personal health records (PHRs). Retrieved from Chamberlain University: https://chamberlain.instructure.com/courses/85274/…

Lester, M., Boateng, S., Studeny, J., & Coustasse, A. (2016, Spring). Personal health records: Beneficial or burdensome for patients and healthcare providers? Perspectives in Health Information Management, pp. 1-12.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Informaton Technology. (n.d.). Personal health records: What health care providers need to know. Retrieved from healthit: https://www.healthit.gov/sites/default/files/facts…