What is a PHR?

PHR is short for 'Personal Health Record'. A Personal Health Record is more than just a copy of all your medical information, collected from all of your doctors, hospitals, and health insurance providers etc. It also contains all of the other information which is so important to your health that doctors are usually unaware of - like your dietary habits, sleeping habits, activities (such as smoking, or skydiving), your symptoms, and reactions to medications, etc. It contains anything YOU want. A good PHR - like HealthFrame - will allow you to leverage this information in myriad ways to help improve your health.

According to http://www.connectingforhealth.org/resources/final_phwg_report1.pdf: The PHR has several distinct attributes:

• Each person controls his or her own PHR. Individuals decide which parts of their PHR can be accessed, by whom and for how long.
• PHRs contain information from one's entire lifetime.
• PHRs contain information from all health care providers.
• PHRs are accessible from any place at any time.
• PHRs are private and secure.
• PHRs are 'transparent'. Individuals can see who entered each piece of data, where it was transferred from and who has viewed it.
• PHRs permit easy exchange of information with other health information systems and health professionals.