Comparative Study of Recognition Differences in Personal Health Record Users between South Korea and the United States

Compared to S. Korea, the United States has been promoting the utilization of personal health records better, especially with the use of online patient portals. Additionally, with the Health Information Act (HIT) and meaningful use criteria, personal health record (PHR) is being re-emphasized to influence the health reform. The U.S. adopted PHR at facilities, including hospitals and ambulatory care centers, whereas the Korean market for PHR is relatively new. However, the level of awareness and utilization of the general public is low in both countries. Thus, to increase awareness and utilization of PHR, this study aimed to compare similarities and differences in the definition, background, utilization, and barriers of PHR between the United States and Republic of Korea. Three published references were reviewed and compared: the Lake Research Partners for the California HealthCare, the Markle Foundations in the U.S., and the Center for Interoperable Electronic Health Record (CIEHR) in Korea. We utilized published reports on definition, background, and function; we also analysed our surveyed data collected in S. Korea in 2008. The data in the three literatures along with the survey data collected in Korea were all gathered from the general public. The result showed that the proportion of PHR users and non-users in the United State (85%) and S. Korea (81%) were similar. According to Lake Research, 32% of 266 American PHR users agreed that PHR is helpful on improving their own health. In addition, 32.4% responded that PHR is useful to the control risk factors for health. The total number of women respondents (35%) in the U.S. was higher than that of men (31%), but the number of women respondents (30.8%) in Korea was lower than that of men (33.9%). The barriers for using PHR for non-users in the U.S. included concerns of privacy (75%), according to the Lake Report. In our survey, 53.4% of Korean non-users of PHR were also concerned about the privacy of their personal information. Although there was a lack of recognition differences, it is important to enhance the quality of healthcare through effective utilization of PHR. With the fact that PHR systems should be tailored for different disease patterns, healthcare systems, and culture, these similarities and differences of recognition as well as perceptions of PHR can be foundational works to conduct future research on comparisons of implementing strategies, issues of governance and policy, and much more.