Reference no: EM133521487

Discussion Post: Your patient has a Personal Health Record...Now what?

Purpose

This discussion topic relates to the following Course Outcomes.

Preparing the Discussion

1. Discussions are designed to promote dialogue between faculty and students, and students and their peers. In discussions students:
a. Demonstrate understanding of concepts for the week
b. Integrate outside scholarly sources when required
c. Engage in meaningful dialogue with classmates and/or instructor
d. Express opinions clearly and logically, in a professional manner
2. Use the rubric on this page as you compose your answers.
3. Best Practices include:
a. Participation early in the week is encouraged to stimulate meaningful discussion among classmates and instructor.
b. Enter the discussion often during the week to read and learn from posts.
c. Select different classmates for your reply each week

Case Study:

A 65-year-old woman was just been diagnosed with Stage 3 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She was informed of this diagnosis in her primary care physician's office. She leaves her physician's office and goes home to review all of her tests and lab results with her family. She goes home and logs into her PHR. She is only able to pull up a portion of her test results. She calls her physician's office with this concern. The office staff discussed that she had part of her lab work completed at a lab not connected to the organization, part was completed at the emergency room, and part was completed in the lab that is part of the doctor's office organization.

The above scenario might be a scenario that you have commonly worked with in clinical practice. For many reasons, patients often receive healthcare from multiple organizations that might have different systems.

Task

As you review this scenario, reflect and answer these questions for this discussion.

Question 1. What are the pros and cons of the situation in the case study?

Question 2. What safeguards are included in patient portals and PHRs to help patients and healthcare professionals ensure safety?

Question 3. Do you agree or disagree with the way that a patient obtains Personal Health Records (PHRs)?

Question 4. What are challenges for patients that do not have access to all of the PHRs? Remember, only portions of the EHRs are typically included in the PHRs.