Formal and de facto standards and guidelines for personal health records (PHRs)

The objective of this research is to canvas the landscape of existing standards and guidelines relating to electronic personal health records (PHRs). Here, we propose a consensus standard for PHRs consisting of 14 data components, 11 of which should be essential for all PHRs and 3 additional recommended data components, as well as 4 key features. Through a survey of existing commercially PHR vendors, we observe a low level of adoption of existing standards.