Pros: WebMD Health Manager is a free, secure, online personal health management tool for individuals or families.

Cons: Users may need practice to effectively navigate the WebMD website. The site uses a 20 minute no activity timeout and automatically logs users out. During testing, user was logged out despite being active on the site.

The Bottomline: WebMD Health Manager is a free online PHR with an easy-to-use interface. Multiple tools are useful in managing and maintaining health records. The auto-logout feature limits the usability of the site. Family members added to the account are maintained as subaccounts and therefore have access to the primary user’s information. This is a definitive negative and should be changed for privacy reasons.

Editor’s Rating:

Reviewed on March 12, 2011

Summary:
The WebMD Health Manager is a very thorough free PHR tool. The interface is easy to use and primarily menu-driven so that most users will be able to get started without difficulty.

Features:
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Health Quotient
This tool allows users to assess their health and lifestyle. It is an easy to navigate, but lengthy series of questions regarding medical issues. Users may skip questions they aren’t sure of, but those they answer ask for specifics – including dates. The assessment takes ten minutes, but during evaluation, user was locked out of results section because the site says that the session “timed out due to inactivity” and logged user out. There had been no lags or inactivity. This seems to be a persistent problem for this portion of the website. Information was not saved and the assessment data was not saved after user signed in again.

Complete Health Record
Users may store information pertaining to medical conditions, medications, allergies, surgeries, immunizations, contact & emergency contact information. Each condition and medication requires relevant dates related to diagnosis or prescription.

Health Trackers
WebMD offers many pre-made health trackers for everything from blood pressure to heart rate. Users may also create their own customized tracker.



Document Library
Upload and manage medical documents quickly and easily.

Medical Contacts/Profile
Users may add medical contacts, type of provider and primary telephone numbers. In the profile section, personal, emergency, employer, and insurance information are stored.

Child Health Manager and Family Accounts
Users may create subaccounts for children under 6 years of age. The PHR is specifically geared toward young children and developmental milestones and child health. Several skills assessments are available to track developmental progress. Accounts for other adult family members may also be added and will use the same username and password from the primary account. Their accounts will be stored as subaccounts to the main account. NOTE: This means that those with subaccounts will be able to view the primary account holder’s medical information.