Evantage Consulting Patient & Caregiver Research Suggests PHR’s Meet Limited Needs for Patients with Chronic Conditions

Evantage Consulting Patient & Caregiver Research Suggests PHR’s Meet Limited Needs for Patients with Chronic Conditions

Evantage Consulting presented new research about the adoption of Personal Health Records (PHR’s) at the Midwest HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) meeting in Minneapolis, MN.

Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) October 20, 2010

Evantage Consulting presented new research about the adoption of Personal Health Records (PHR’s) at the Midwest HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) meeting in Minneapolis, MN.

Evantage Senior User Experience Consultant and principal researcher, Sheetal Dube, presented findings from research conducted with PHR users who have chronic health conditions and their caregivers. Patients with chronic conditions are perceived as one group who could substantially benefit from increased PHR use. According to Ms. Dube, “While many research studies have asked patients and consumers why they DON’T use a PHR, Evantage’s research focused on patients and caregivers who are using a PHR to understand how it benefits them.”

Evantage’s research consisted of interviews with older patients with chronic health conditions and their caregivers. Ms Dube summarized the key findings from the research as suggesting that the majority of patients and caregivers utilize multiple tools to track and manage their health information including: spreadsheets, cell phones and calendars. Several patients or their caregivers created extensive spreadsheets to track and monitor health conditions and progress over time. “We also found some PHR users limit the type of information they maintain in a PHR because of their concerns about who could access the information.”

“Overall, we found typical caregivers or patients using a PHR were utilizing less than 25% of its features. We observed that the complexity of the PHR’s combined with data security concerns actually shifted some participants toward more use of spreadsheets to maintain their information,” Ms Dube said.

The research findings suggest that PHR designers would benefit from designing interfaces reflecting the diversity of patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers in mind. According to Ms Dube, simplification of the interface combined with offering visual display of trend information would improve adoption of PHR’s. “Without these improvements it will be difficult for many caregivers and patients to view PHR’s as more than a data storage facility.”

For more information on Midwest HIMSS please visit http://falltechnologyconference. com/.

About Evantage Consulting

Evantage Consulting solves complex problems creatively to help business leaders realize breakthrough results and deliver successful new products and services for the healthcare and consumer products and services industries. The firm applies its strong analytics orientation across a holistic spectrum of data to assure products that are both profitable, usable and engaging. Evantage specializes in user experience and analytics, integrated web strategy, business performance consulting and innovations in health care.

Founded in 1999, Evantage Consulting is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. For more information, visit http://www. evantageconsulting. com. Evantage Consulting is also proud to be a two-time winner of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal’s Great Places to Work award.

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