Consumers remain wary of personal health records

Adoption rates to remain 'modest' over the next one to three years, IDC says.

Computerworld - Personal health records are a method of storing and accessing health information online, and while big-name companies like Google and Microsoft are behind the largest of these data stores, adoption of the services remains stagnant, a new survey and research report found.

In the "2011 Connected Health Consumer Survey" by IDC Health Insights, the vast majority of 1,200 respondents indicated that they aren't using a personal health record (PHR) tool because they have yet to be exposed to one, according to the research firm, which released the results of the survey this month.

IDC's survey and report focused on the progress that PHR platforms, such as Dossia, Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault, have made over the past five years or so.

The report compared survey results from 2006 and 2011 and found that in each year only 7% of the respondents reported ever having used a PHR. And in those two years, 51% and 50.6% of the respondents, respectively, indicated they didn't use a PHR system because they hadn't been exposed to one. Two other primary reasons for not using a PHR system were that the respondents didn't seek much medical care (just 10% in 2006 and 17% in 2011 said they did) and they didn't trust the security of the Internet-based sites (10% of the respondents in both 2006 and 2011 said they felt that way).     Read More