Mobile PHRs On The Way — Slowly

On-demand mobile PHRs are likely to emerge over time, but not until the healthcare industry does something to mend its interoperability problems, according to a new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan.

As the paper notes, mobile application development is moving at a brisk clip, driven by consumer and governmental demands for better quality care, lower healthcare costs and improved access to information.

The problem is, it’s hard to create mobile products — especially a mobile PHR — when the various sectors of the healthcare industry don’t share data effectively.  According to Frost  & Sullivan, it will be necessary to connect up providers, hospitals, physician specialty groups, imaging centers, laboratories, payers and government entities, each of which have operated within their own informational silos and deployed their own unique infrastructures.

The healthcare industry will also need to resolve still-undecided questions as to who owns patient information, Frost & Sullivan suggests.  As things stand, “the patient does not own his or her health information, as this data is stored within the IT  protocols of the EHR system,  proprietary to providers, hospitals and health systems,” said Frost & Sullivan Connected Health Senior Industry Analyst Patrick Riley in a press statement.

While patient ownership of medical data sounds like a problem worth addressing, the industry hasn’t shown the will to address it.  To date, efforts to address the issue of who owns digital files has been met with a “tepid” response, the release notes.

However, it’s clear that outside vendors can solve the problem if they see a need. For example, consider the recent deal in which Allscripts agreed to supply clinical data to health plans.  Allscripts plans to funnel data from participating users of its ambulatory EMR to vendor Inovalon, which aggregates claims, lab, pharmacy, durable medical equipment, functional status and patient demographics for payers. Providers are getting patient-level analyses of the data in return for their participation.

Deals like this one suggest that rather than wait for interoperability, bringing together the data for a robust mobile PHR should be done by a third  party. Which party, what it will it cost to work with them and how the data collection would work are the least of the big problems that would have to be solved — but might be that or nothing for the foreseeable future.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

1 Comment

  • Flying car on the way, slowly.

    Yes, PHRs will happen some day, as will a flying car.

    Some of the biggest players have given it(PHRs) a try and failed.

    Why?

    People don’t care.

    More properly said, few people really care to have a PHR.

    Until someone cares as much about their health as they do their current Facebook status, PHRs will be stalled out.

    If people really cared to have a PHR they would.
    Then, demand from people would push docs to use an EHR that interacted with their PHR.
    Then those EHRs that don’t play well would either be dropped or get an ear full from docs as patients revolt.
    Then and only then, might we actually see true EHR interoperability.

    Remember, the first part of this process is people have to actually want to have a PHR.

    The other method would be the government require we all have a PHR…which wouldn’t surprise me at some point.

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