HHS to survey Medicare patients on PHR use
By Mary Mosquera
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Health and Human Services Department plans to survey 500 Medicare beneficiaries this fall about difficulties and benefits they may have experienced using personal health record (PHR) systems.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year began offering PHR tools to Medicare fee-for-service patients in Arizona and Utah to help them track their health and healthcare services.
The pilot offered patients a choice of PHRs from among GoogleHealth, NoMoreClipboard, PassportMD and HealthTrio.
“We know very little about why consumers, and specifically Medicare beneficiaries, elect to use PHRs and what functionality they want from a PHR,” according to the announcement in the Feb 18 Federal Register.
“Understanding these needs will be critical” if consumers are to use PHRs as a tool to manage their health and have the capability to link to their provider's EHR, HHS said.
The announcement is online here.
