Personal Health Records: What Do Underserved Consumers Want?

Personal health information is a valuable resource to individuals and their families, as well as health care providers. This issue brief describes the features of 21 software-based Personal Health Records (PHRs) and assesses whether the features match the needs and preferences of underserved individuals, most of them minorities who face economic, cultural, or linguistic barriers to health care, and often have low health and computer literacy. The brief notes that underserved minorities want PHRs that are portable, secure, private, and simple. In addition, many said they would pay modest set-up and update fees, but would be reluctant to pay maintenance fees. The brief is based on focus groups conducted with individuals from underserved low-income minority groups to discuss PHRs and their capacity to improve health care.