Patient Centric Portability – What APHR is all about

While there is a wide choice of PHR models, (standalone, tethered, integrated), only the integrated model has true transformative potential to strengthen consumers' ability to manage their own health care. Integrated PHRs improve the quality, completeness, depth, and accessibility of health information provided by patients; enable facile communication between patients and providers; provide access to health knowledge for patients; ensure portability of medical records and other personal health information; and incorporate auto-population of content. Numerous factors impede widespread adoption of integrated PHRs: obstacles in the health care system/culture; issues of consumer confidence and trust; lack of technical standards for interoperability; lack of HIT infrastructure; the digital divide; uncertain value realization/ROI; and uncertain market

portability
demand. Recent efforts have led to progress on standards for integrated PHRs, and government agencies and private companies are offering different models to consumers, but substantial obstacles remain to be addressed. Immediate steps to advance integrated PHRs should include sharing existing knowledge and expanding knowledge about them, building on existing efforts, and continuing dialogue among public and private sector stakeholders.1
Portability

Typical PHR rollouts will have as their basic patient centric features:


  Contains information from one's entire lifetime;


  Contains information from all health care providers;


  Is accessible from any place at any time;


  Is private and secure;


  Is transparent. Individuals can see who entered each piece of data, where it was transferred from and who has viewed it;


  Permits easy exchange of information with other health information systems and health professionals.

Patients want to receive information about their medical conditions ideally from their best source of consultation and treatment. Amrita Medical's Healthcare Informatics Solution was developed primarily for the Amrita Institute for Medical Sciences & Research, a tertiary level 1400 bed teaching hospital. Patients therefore are assured that their PHRs are integrated with EHR systems completely operational at hospitals.
Between the patient-held PHR and his/her care giver institution is the fully functional bridging EHR/EMR solution.