Final answer:
PHR stands for Personal Health Record, which is a tool for individuals to collect, track, and share their health information. It is electronic and helps with decision-making, unlike an EHR, which is used by healthcare professionals.
Step-by-step explanation:
Meaning of PHR in the Context of Health
The term PHR stands for Personal Health Record. A Personal Health Record is a tool that individuals can use to collect, track, and share past and current information about their health or the health of someone in their care. It is an electronic, lifelong resource of health information needed by individuals to make health decisions. Individuals own and manage the information in the PHR, which comes from healthcare providers and the individual. The PHR is separate from and does not replace the legal record of any provider.
Having a PHR has many benefits including improving patient-doctor communication, ensuring more accurate care, facilitating care in emergencies, and allowing individuals to play a more active role in their own health care management. The PHR should not be confused with an Electronic Health Record (EHR), which is an electronic record of health-related information on an individual that is created, gathered, managed, and consulted by authorized health care clinicians and staff.