Personal electronic health records (PEHRs) enable patients access to their own medical records. Differences in access and use of PEHRs may create health disparities. We conducted a narrative literature review regarding the effects of race, language preference, education, income, and homelessness on PEHR usage as well as PEHRs content, particularly stigmatizing language. Of 3177 citations found, 75 articles were relevant. Patient race, language, income, and education predicted PEHR use, which could potentially exacerbate health disparities.

Germany\'s electronic patient record (\"ePA\") launched in 2021 with several attempts and years of delay. The development of such a large-scale project is a complex task, and so is its adoption. Individual attitudes towards an electronic health record are crucial, as individuals can reject opting-in to it and making any national efforts unachievable. Although the integration of an electronic health record serves potential benefits, it also constitutes risks for an individual\'s privacy. With a mixed-methods study design, this work provides evidence that different types of motivations and contextual privacy antecedents affect usage intentions towards the ePA. Most significantly, individual motivations stemming from feelings of volition or external mandates positively affect ePA adoption, although internal incentives are more powerful.

Although Personal Electronic Health Records (PEHR) have been identified as innovative tools enabling the provision of patient-centered care and prevention, evidence on the impact of their use is scant. With PEHRs being more and more marketed as easily implementable and cost-effective instruments to provide people with direct control on their health, the question on whether their use might be associated with the priority to improve vaccine coverage arises.
We conducted a systematic review following the PRISMA guidelines to retrieve, quantitatively pool and critically appraise the effectiveness of PEHR access on vaccine uptake. Analysis on PEHR effectiveness were carried out for the following comparison strata: i) PEHR access vs no intervention (standard care, no access to PEHR), ii) PEHR access only vs access to PEHR with additional features (e.g. health education materials, active reminders).
Of 3114 identified citations, 8 studies were included, the majority published in the US and before 2015; 62% were randomized trials, the rest having an observational study design. Evidence suggests a moderate positive impact of PEHR access in increasing vaccine uptake, with data available for influenza and pneumococcal vaccines, diabetic patients and childhood immunization. Pooled data report the addition of digital communication features, i.e. the delivery of educational messages, reminders and availability of scheduling features might increase vaccine uptake, as compared to PEHR access alone. However, evidence is not conclusive.
While immunization programs are struggling to achieve optimal coverage targets, it seems the potential of PEHRSs supporting informed adherence to vaccines recommendations is neither fully exploited nor explored. Which factors mediate the association between PEHRs access and vaccine uptake? Which PEHRs\' design and functional components can maximize their impact? On which target populations? Which PEHR models works better for high-risk populations? Our findings can only partially answer those questions and further experimental research is needed.

Electronic health records and the Internet will continue to transform how information is accessed and shared. Users of health data such as health professionals, governments, policymakers, researchers and patients themselves need to be able to access the right information at the right time and be confident in the quality of that information, whether personal, aggregated or knowledge based. It is essential to evaluate information systems and applications that claim to improve information quality and access in order to provide evidence that they support healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes.

BACKGROUND: In recent years, people who sought direct-to-consumer genetic testing services have been increasingly confronted with an unprecedented amount of personal genomic information, which influences their decisions, emotional state, and well-being. However, these users of direct-to-consumer genetic services, who vary in their education and interests, frequently have little relevant experience or tools for understanding, reasoning about, and interacting with their personal genomic data. Online interactive techniques can play a central role in making personal genomic data useful for these users.
OBJECTIVE: We sought to (1) identify the needs of diverse users as they make sense of their personal genomic data, (2) consequently develop effective interactive visualizations of genomic trait data to address these users\' needs, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the developed visualizations in facilitating comprehension.
METHODS: The first two user studies, conducted with 63 volunteers in the Personal Genome Project and with 36 personal genomic users who participated in a design workshop, respectively, employed surveys and interviews to identify the needs and expectations of diverse users. Building on the two initial studies, the third study was conducted with 730 Amazon Mechanical Turk users and employed a controlled experimental design to examine the effectiveness of different design interventions on user comprehension.
RESULTS: The first two studies identified searching, comparing, sharing, and organizing data as fundamental to users\' understanding of personal genomic data. The third study demonstrated that interactive and visual design interventions could improve the understandability of personal genomic reports for consumers. In particular, results showed that a new interactive bubble chart visualization designed for the study resulted in the highest comprehension scores, as well as the highest perceived comprehension scores. These scores were significantly higher than scores received using the industry standard tabular reports currently used for communicating personal genomic information.
CONCLUSIONS: Drawing on multiple research methods and populations, the findings of the studies reported in this paper offer deep understanding of users\' needs and practices, and demonstrate that interactive online design interventions can improve the understandability of personal genomic reports for consumers. We discuss implications for designers and researchers.

BACKGROUND: By providing sports organizations with electronic records and instruments that can be accessed at any time or place, specialized care can be offered to athletes regardless of injury location, and this makes the follow-up from first aid through to full recovery more efficient.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to develop an electronic personal health record for professional Iranian athletes.
METHODS: First, a comparative study was carried out on the types of professional athletes\'existing handheld and electronic health information management systems currently being used in Iran and leading countries in the field of sports medicine including; Australia, Canada and the United States. Then a checklist was developed containing a minimum dataset of professional athletes\' personal health records and distributed to the people involved, who consisted of 50 specialists in sports medicine and health information management, using the Delphi method. Through the use of data obtained from this survey, a basic paper model of professional athletes\' personal health record was constructed and then an electronic model was created accordingly.
RESULTS: Access to information in the electronic record was through a web-based, portal system. The capabilities of this system included: access to information at any time and location, increased interaction between the medical team, comprehensive reporting and effective management of injuries, flexibility and interaction with financial, radiology and laboratory information systems.
CONCLUSIONS: It is suggested that a framework should be created to promote athletes\' medical knowledge and provide the education necessary to manage their information. This would lead to improved data quality and ultimately promote the health of community athletes.

BACKGROUND: The use of personal health records (PHRs) can help people make better health decisions and improves the quality of care by allowing access to and use of the information needed to communicate effectively with others concerning their health care.
OBJECTIVE: This work presents the lifelong PHR system of the Lombardy region as an example of the implementation of an e-health solution that is capable of providing personal clinical documents from a lifelong perspective, integrating different healthcare providers over a large territory.
METHODS: The lifelong PHR is embedded in the regional healthcare information system of Lombardy, which is characterised by a large and heterogeneous territory, a large number of different healthcare providers and organisations, and a significant population.
RESULTS: The lifelong PHR makes clinical documents available to healthcare professionals and citizens when needed, and it is automatically updated with all of the documents regarding a clinical event regardless of which healthcare provider is currently taking care of the patient. Present statistics show that the lifelong PHR has experienced a wide diffusion in a short period of time, and at the end of 2010, it was active for more than five million Lombardy citizens. Digital reports and e-prescription transactions have almost doubled since 2007 and have reached a coverage of almost 100%.
CONCLUSIONS: The qualified and exhaustive collection of patient clinical data and documents should impact daily medical practice, as well as the care pathways and services provided to patients, and should help in the renewal of health assistance and the simplification of patients\' access to care.