Personal data records raise legal, security issues.(Practice Trends)

BALTIMORE -- Personal health records may be the next step in the evolution of health information technology, but these electronic documents raise several legal and security issues for long-term care facilities.

"PHRs might in fact have the opportunity to leapfrog over things that are happening in electronic health records," Dr. Steven Labkoff, director of business technology for Pfizer Inc., said at a meeting on long-term care health information technology.

The main difference between personal health records (PHRs) and electronic health records is who owns them. Ideally, patients should own their PHRs. But it is still unclear who should control what information is entered in the document and, perhaps more important, who should be able to delete information from the record, experts said at the meeting, sponsored by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).

An online public survey conducted in 2003 found that 71% of respondents believed that personal health records would improve the quality of health care, said Jill Burrington-Brown, the practice manager for health information management products and services at AHIMA.

"The time is now to accelerate the development of personal health records," she said, citing a report from Connecting for Health, a project of the Markle Foundation to promote the adoption and use of personal health records.

"A second finding was that PHRs are a means to necessary ends, such as increased consumer health awareness, activation, safety, and self-efficacy," she said.

During roundtable discussions, meeting attendees said that they thought personal health records are a potentially important component of health information technology efforts, but many also had misgivings about the security risk represented by giving seniors, some with cognitive deficits, electronic access to their health ...