Resources for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

The Current State of Personal Health Records

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Personal health information is everywhere, or so it seems. Employees are asked to take health risk assessments (HRAs), Web-based surveys or any number of consumer-oriented tools to help determine their preventable health risks. Doctors have member medical and prescription history while dentists have information on every tooth in your mouth. Member data is everywhere, so the goal of the personal health record (PHR) is a laudable one: Bring together all of this information, with member-entered data, into a single data store. But even if this noble goal were attained, who would control this information and how would it be used?

A noble cause, but challenges wait
Currently, health plans are in the best position to consolidate member health data into a single, organized, useful set of information. Some of the challenges for them to do so are establishing or identifying up-to-date member data sources, cultivating member trust and providing members with a benefit to participate in such systems. For example, most of the information is currently collected from claims systems that offer only a small snapshot of member health, unless the member has recently been in a clinical setting. To potentially fill this gap, self-reported data or HRAs may be requested -- but many members are not motivated to respond to these offers due to a lack of trust or understanding as to how the data will be used.

A recent Forrester Research report found that consumers don't necessarily trust health plans to keep personal health information private. ("Privacy Concerns Hinder Health Plan Web Site Growth: Consumer-Directed Health Plan Members Struggle the Most with Privacy," February 21, 2008.) Additionally, people change jobs, and employers change insurance companies, rendering any member updates lost to the change.

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