Using Personal Health Records to Address Disparities in Health Care

Personal health records (PHRs)—electronic records of an individual's health information that the individual owns and manages in a secure environment—have the potential to improve health care quality and access to care. They may also empower consumers and help them take a more active role in their health care by allowing them to access and coordinate health information and share it with those who need it.

Individuals and providers may both enter PHR data, but the individual controls access to the information. Although PHRs are in their infancy, experts think that PHRs in the future will rely on web-based technology and the internet.

How PHRs can be used to enhance health care quality for underserved populations, most of them minorities with low health and computer literacy, remains largely unanswered. The federal government is exploring whether PHRs can be used as an intervention to reduce health care disparities.

To inform policy discussions about the future direction of PHRs in reducing disparities, Mathematica is addressing three questions: (1) How do members of underserved populations view the concept of PHRs? (2) What are the potential barriers to adopting PHRs among underserved populations? (3) What factors must be considered in designing PHRs for underserved populations? To answer these questions, Mathematica is conducting focus groups in federally designated medically underserved areas in New Jersey. In addition, researchers are assessing (1) whether several of the most widely used PHRs in the market address the needs of these populations, and examining whether they include functions that focus group participants report as desirable, and (2) how PHRs may need to be modified to meet the needs and preferences of individuals from underserved populations.

The research team for this project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will produce an issue brief addressing the current understanding of the PHR concept by low-income racial and ethnic minority populations. Additional briefs will examine barriers to and facilitators of adoption, as well as strategies for building on existing PHRs.

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