PHRs from EHR Vendors: Beneficial to Patients?
A Consumer Perspective


A few of the EHRs, such as AthenaHealth.com, appear to offer an abbreviated PHR, with areas for medical forms asking for history, allergies, and current conditions. This may be optional for each practice, but this particular EHR seems to present the most thorough PHR of those reviews.



The bottomline is that the healthcare providers choose what they wish to include in their PHRs or Patient Portals. Some wish to only utilize them as a communication device for scheduling appointments or asking brief questions. Others adopt a more comprehensive approach and ask patients to complete a medical history similar to the forms patients complete when visiting a doctor’s office. The benefits of this scenario are that the information is available to both the physician and the patient, forms may be viewed prior to the patient being seen in the office, physicians are better informed of the patients’ current conditions and needs, and makes each patient’s healthcare a team venture.

PHRs are still an evolving tool. As more PHR features get integrated within EHRs, the overall healthcare experience should improve and provide more value to patients as well as their healthcare providers.



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