iHealthRecord makes a good case for PHR

Christina over at Christina’s Considerations writes about Personal Health Records. She points out Medem’s new iHealthRecord site, which seems like a great PHR initiative. This PHR competes with the likes of OnFile, MyMedicalRecord.com, MyPHR.com, and numerous others. The market is not starting to mature yet because the initial players are still basically throwing darts at the wall to see what’s sticking.

Until a “name brand” PHR appears (like my suggestion for American Red Cross to become a player) we’ll continue to see widely varying implementations. As soon as the big players enter and we see some consolidation we’ll get some really good economies of scale.

By the way, the winners may not be chosen because of the size of vendor but the size of customers using it. For example, if IBM picks a PHR for its employees and few other Forturne 50 companies do so, it will drive a vendor’s success. Other factors that will drive vendor success will be if health plans pick up their service. A PHR chosen by AARP may be the biggest beneficiary.