Over the last couple of weeks, a significant event happened in the history of the PHR. Two of the leading players in the PHR space--Microsoft and Google--signed up insurance partners, making it far simpler for users of those PHRs to upload and exchange claims information. As we've noted in the past, not everyone agrees that PHRs must contain claims data; however, I don't think there's any dispute that such data can be handy.
With these two announcements (Google's linkup with BCBS of Massachusetts and Microsoft's with Kaiser Permanente), the whole concept of where the PHR is headed has begun to evolve. This is a concrete demonstration that, while the idea of having a patient maintain their own health records is a lovely idea, compiled external data is where the action is. And until EMRs are a fact of life pretty much everywhere in the U.S., nobody can come close to competing with the databases maintained by large health plans.
From this point on, I think you're going to see a race by PHR players, large and small, to compete for the locked-in loyalty of health plans, including not only brand names like Google, Microsoft and WebMD, but also smaller players still hoping to make their own mark. The smaller players, in particular, are going to find themselves locked out of the PHR market in record time of they don't lock up good sources of claims data.
Looked at another way, having the PHR industry shift to relying on claims data is an admission that the notion that consumers would become efficient, thorough record keepers of critical health information is a bust. I'm sure vendors will still give lip service to the idea the consumers should enter their own information, but I predict it will soon be played down a great deal.
Now, the question will be what do proposition PHR vendors have to offer health plans to be the most attractive option? I don't know what the answer is, but I do think things will shake out very quickly. In fact, the PHR we discuss in 2009 may be unrecognizable from the one that surfaced in early 2007. It'll be interesting to see just how it evolves over the next several months, don't you think? - Anne