Sun hosted the NorCal HIMSS chapter last month (December 2007) in our Santa Clara campus. I waited with my blog entry for the presentations to be posted, and here they are. Ted Eytan from Group Health did a fantastic job - I really recommend his presentation and his blog entry. When we talk about PHR, it often sounds like science fiction. But Group Health is using personal health records extensively already in their daily practice. It's also impressive (and entertaining when watching the respective TV commercials) to see how Group Health uses secure email for the communication between physicians and consumers.
Dr. Linares from Anthem gave a strong endorsement for PHR from the point of view of the the largest health plan in the US. Their PHR pilot works with our partner CentriHealth on Sun CMT technology.
The bottom line: for HMOs like Group Health and Kaiser (they were in the audience and were interactive with Ted), PHRs are already reality. It might be that the economic model for HMOs is a strong driver for this - better, more efficient health care (based on available medication records) create healthier, happier subscribers and more profit - sorry - surplus for research and lower premiums. But also conventional payers like Anthem see the benefits and look for ways to include the different stakeholders to make PHRs useful.
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