PHR, We've Had a Problem Here

摘要

Personal health records (PHRs) have been a global trend in recent decade. It has been seen as a concept and tool that could help patients maintaining health, improving their well-being, and supporting communication with healthcare professional etc. Despite the great amount of research about PHR there is no consensus what a PHR actually means in academic literature or other arenas. There are multiple terms in use and multiple definitions which set challenges for rational discourse between citizens/patient, healthcare providers, system developers and policy makers. Especially, when citizens-as key stakeholder-should also be able to understand what those systems are we need clear and understandable definition for PHR's. In the paper, we conduct a brief survey for different definitions and show the problems that arise with the incoherent use of the term "PHR".