Enhancing the Functionalities of Personal Health Record Systems: Empirical Study Based on the HL7 Personal Health...

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Digital Health
• Personalized Medicine

Background:

• Growing demand for personal health record (PHR) systems to empower individuals in managing their healthcare.
• Current PHR systems face adoption challenges due to limited functionality, impacting user engagement.
• The Health Level Seven (HL7) PHR System Functional Model (PHR-S FM) offers a theoretical framework for comprehensive PHR functionalities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and develop a tethered PHR prototype adhering to the PHR-S FM guidelines.
• To assess the practical feasibility of implementing the PHR-S FM in PHR systems.
• To compare prototype performance with prior research for validation.

Main Methods:

• Defined a PHR-S FM profile for clinical data management based on existing research.
• Developed a web-based PHR prototype utilizing Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources R4 (FHIR) and Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) for interoperability.
• Validated the prototype using the Synthea synthetic patient dataset.

Main Results:

• The PHR prototype successfully synchronized data with a FHIR server, managing diverse health information.
• Validation with the Synthea dataset confirmed 100% accuracy across 1157 data items.
• Comparative analysis with previous studies indicated the feasibility of the PHR-S FM framework.

Conclusions:

• The study validates the practical applicability of the PHR-S FM for developing functional PHR systems.
• Findings suggest the PHR-S FM can enhance the adoption and effectiveness of PHR systems in clinical settings.
• Identified areas for future research to further refine PHR system development and implementation.