title: Personal health records: is rapid adoption hindering interoperability?
abstract: The establishment of the Meaningful Use criteria has created a critical need for robust interoperability of health records. A universal definition of a personal health record (PHR) has not been agreed upon. Standardized code sets have been built for specific entities, but integration between them has not been supported. The purpose of this research study was to explore the hindrance and promotion of interoperability standards in relationship to PHRs to describe interoperability progress in this area. The study was conducted following the basic principles of a systematic review, with 61 articles used in the study. Lagging interoperability has stemmed from slow adoption by patients, creation of disparate systems due to rapid development to meet requirements for the Meaningful Use stages, and rapid early development of PHRs prior to the mandate for integration among multiple systems. Findings of this study suggest that deadlines for implementation to capture Meaningful Use incentive payments are supporting the creation of PHR data silos, thereby hindering the goal of high-level interoperability.
authors.affiliation: Jana Studeny, RN-BC, MSHI, is a graduate of the Healthcare Informatics Program at Marshall University in Huntington, WV.
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Studeny
authors.affiliation: Alberto Coustasse, DrPH, MD, MBA, MPH, is an associate professor of the healthcare administration program in the College of Business at Marshall University in South Charleston, WV.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Coustasse
mesh_terms: D059019:Clinical Coding / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D066275:Health Information Exchange; D055991:Health Records, Personal; D006801:Humans; D062527:Meaningful Use / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D033283:Patient Access to Records; D018511:Systems Integration
keywords: interoperability; meaningful use; personal health record; regional health information organization (RHIO)