Personal Health Records: New Means to Safely Handle Health Data?

BACKGROUND Although researchers are giving increased attention to blockchain-based personal health records (PHRs) and data sharing, the majority of research focuses on technical design. Very little is known about health care consumers’ intentions to adopt the applications. OBJECTIVE This study aims to explore the intentions and concerns of health care consumers regarding the adoption of blockchain-based personal health records and data sharing. METHODS Three focus groups were conducted, in which 26 participants were shown a prototype of a user interface for a self-sovereign blockchain-based PHR system (ie, a system in which the individual owns, has custody of, and controls access to their personal health information) to be used for privacy and secure health data sharing. A microinterlocutor analysis of focus group transcriptions was performed to show a descriptive overview of participant responses. NVivo 12.0 was used to code the categories of the responses. RESULTS Participants did not exhibit a substantial increase in their willingness to become owners of health data and share the data with third parties after the blockchain solution was introduced. Participants were concerned about the risks of losing private keys, the resulting difficulty in accessing care, and the irrevocability of data access on blockchain. They did, however, favor a blockchain-based PHR that incorporates a private key recovery system and offers a health wallet hosted by government or other positively perceived organizations. They were more inclined to share data via blockchain if the third party used the data for collective good and offered participants nonmonetary forms of compensation and if the access could be revoked from the third party. CONCLUSIONS Health care consumers were not strongly inclined to adopt blockchain-based PHRs and health data sharing. However, their intentions may increase when the concerns and recommendations demonstrated in this study are considered in application design.

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Consumers’ Intentions to Adopt Blockchain-Based Personal Health Records and Data Sharing: Focus Group Study

JMIR Formative Research ◽

10.2196/21995 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (11) ◽

pp. e21995

Author(s):

Chang Lu ◽

Danielle Batista ◽

Hoda Hamouda ◽

Victoria Lemieux

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Focus Group ◽

Data Sharing ◽

Health Data ◽

Personal Health Records ◽

Third Party ◽

Personal Health ◽

Health Records ◽

The Third ◽

The Third Party

Background Although researchers are giving increased attention to blockchain-based personal health records (PHRs) and data sharing, the majority of research focuses on technical design. Very little is known about health care consumers’ intentions to adopt the applications. Objective This study aims to explore the intentions and concerns of health care consumers regarding the adoption of blockchain-based personal health records and data sharing. Methods Three focus groups were conducted, in which 26 participants were shown a prototype of a user interface for a self-sovereign blockchain-based PHR system (ie, a system in which the individual owns, has custody of, and controls access to their personal health information) to be used for privacy and secure health data sharing. A microinterlocutor analysis of focus group transcriptions was performed to show a descriptive overview of participant responses. NVivo 12.0 was used to code the categories of the responses. Results Participants did not exhibit a substantial increase in their willingness to become owners of health data and share the data with third parties after the blockchain solution was introduced. Participants were concerned about the risks of losing private keys, the resulting difficulty in accessing care, and the irrevocability of data access on blockchain. They did, however, favor a blockchain-based PHR that incorporates a private key recovery system and offers a health wallet hosted by government or other positively perceived organizations. They were more inclined to share data via blockchain if the third party used the data for collective good and offered participants nonmonetary forms of compensation and if the access could be revoked from the third party. Conclusions Health care consumers were not strongly inclined to adopt blockchain-based PHRs and health data sharing. However, their intentions may increase when the concerns and recommendations demonstrated in this study are considered in application design.

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Energy Efficiency of Personal Health Records

Proceedings ◽

10.3390/proceedings2190510 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 (19) ◽

pp. 510

Author(s):

Coral Calero ◽

José Luis Fernández-Alemán ◽

Javier Mancebo ◽

José A. García-Berná ◽

Félix García ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Energy Efficiency ◽

Energy Consumption ◽

Electronic Device ◽

Health Data ◽

Personal Health Records ◽

Personal Health ◽

Health Records ◽

Initial Approach ◽

Considerable Impact ◽

Usability Criteria

Personal Health Records (PHR) are electronic tools managed by the patients themselves, allowing them to store and consult health data anywhere and at any time using an electronic device. Precisely because of the type of users they are aimed at, it is essential to guarantee that PHR are easy to use. However, having a PHR that is usable does not mean that it is the best in terms of energy efficiency. Taking into account the large number of users that this type of portal is aimed at, achieving savings in energy consumption when running the portal’s tasks can have a considerable impact. In this paper we present an initial approach that studies the interaction between usability and energy efficiency of PHRs, attempting to determine if a given PHR makes efficient use of the resources it needs for the execution of its tasks. To do this, we have used the EET device, which allows us to collect the consumption of different hardware components when running software (in our case the PHR), and the usability criteria defined by Dix.

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Development of Comprehensive Personal Health Records Integrating Patient-Generated Health Data Directly From Samsung S-Health and Apple Health Apps: Retrospective Cross-Sectional Observational Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.12691 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Se Young Jung ◽

Jeong-Whun Kim ◽

Hee Hwang ◽

Keehyuck Lee ◽

Rong-Min Baek ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Chronic Diseases ◽

Task Force ◽

Age Groups ◽

Health Data ◽

Personal Health Records ◽

Medical Documentation ◽

Personal Health ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Health Records ◽

Health Apps

BACKGROUND Patient-generated health data (PGHD), especially lifelog data, are important for managing chronic diseases. Additionally, personal health records (PHRs) have been considered an effective tool to engage patients more actively in the management of their chronic diseases. However, no PHRs currently integrate PGHD directly from Samsung S-Health and Apple Health apps. OBJECTIVE The purposes of this study were (1) to demonstrate the development of an electronic medical record (EMR)–tethered PHR system (Health4U) that integrates lifelog data from Samsung S-Health and Apple Health apps and (2) to explore the factors associated with the use rate of the functions. METHODS To upgrade conventional EMR-tethered PHRs, a task-force team (TFT) defined the functions necessary for users. After implementing a new system, we enrolled adults aged 19 years and older with prior experience of accessing Health4U in the 7-month period after November 2017, when the service was upgraded. RESULTS Of the 17,624 users, 215 (1.22%) integrated daily steps data, 175 (0.99%) integrated weight data, 51 (0.29%) integrated blood sugar data, and 90 (0.51%) integrated blood pressure data. Overall, 61.95% (10,919/17,624) had one or more chronic diseases. For integration of daily steps data, 48.3% (104/215) of patients used the Apple Health app, 43.3% (93/215) used the S-Health app, and 8.4% (18/215) entered data manually. To retrieve medical documentation, 324 (1.84%) users downloaded PDF files and 31 (0.18%) users integrated their medical records into the Samsung S-Health app via the Consolidated-Clinical Document Architecture download function. We found a consistent increase in the odds ratios for PDF downloads among patients with a higher number of chronic diseases. The age groups of ≥60 years and ≥80 years tended to use the download function less frequently than the others. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study to examine the factors related to integration of lifelog data from Samsung S-Health and Apple Health apps into EMR-tethered PHRs and factors related to the retrieval of medical documents from PHRs. Our findings on the lifelog data integration can be used to design PHRs as a platform to integrate lifelog data in the future.

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