Personal Health Record Adoption Faces Digital Divide
Personal Health Records (PHR) have been on the rise in the United States as a means of easily accessing and coordinating health information. Growing in popularity, such records are part of a broader health IT movement that simplifies health care for patients and care providers alike.
However, a new study by the Archives of Internal Medicine found that PHR adoption is far less prevalent among blacks and Hispanics — who are only about half as likely as whites to establish a personal health record. On the whole, low-income patients were 14% less likely to make the switch than high-income patients.
Overcoming the adoption hurdle needs to be a priority if care providers want to expand health IT to all patients across all systems.
The benefits of PHR are many, from helping patients with a chronic disease track check-ups to allowing doctors to quickly check for drug interactions when writing out prescriptions. Health IT is the future of health management and needs to be inclusive of everyone.
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