A Computationally-guided Qualitative Analysis to Understand User Experiences with Different Types of Mobile Personal...

Mobile personal health records (mPHR) are smartphone apps that grant patients portable and continuous access to their medical records, thereby increasing the potential for patients to play an active role in managing their health. An extensive body of literature has focused on understanding user experiences with web-based tethered PHRs (i.e., patient portals) offered by healthcare organizations. However, patients' opinions of smartphone-based PHRs have received less attention. To address this gap, we used a computationally-guided qualitative analysis approach to analyze user reviews of six tethered and four interconnected mPHR apps available on both Google Play and Apple app stores. This approach resulted in identifying dimensions of user experiences related to usability, usefulness, and important features to users. Our findings reveal many similarities in user experiences for HCO-tethered and HCO-independent interconnected PHRs. However, there are some differences in user experiences between the types of PHRs and the different devices and platforms.