Personal Health record

Personal Health Application are tools and services in medical informatics which utilizes Information technologies to aid individuals to create their own personal health information.

Personal health records are the complete health data copy owned by an individual. It could be either paper based or stored electronically on patient’s computer locally or distally at another server and accessed through internet. Digital Personal Health Records [DPHR] are tools and services in medical informatics which utilizes Information technologies to aid individuals to create their own personal health information.Current storage technologies which are deployed are optical media like CDs,DVDs or Blu Ray Discs and Flash memory devices like USB Flash drive and also Memory Storage Disks,Memory Sticks or Portable Hard drives. They could also be stored online at a distant server.The health data could be entered by individuals or by their health care provider.

It contains patient’s personal data (name, date of birth and other demographic details).It also includes patient’s diagnosis or health condition and details about the various treatment/assessments delivered by health professionals during an episode of care from health care provider.

Individuals create their own personal health record in DPHR unlike the Electronic Medical Records which are created by Hospital and medical centers by physicians.With the growth of Web 2.0 in the internet, there is renewed interest in Personal health records in electronic format today.