Development of a Mobile Personal Health Record Application Designed for Emergency Care in Korea; Integrated Information from Multicenter Electronic Medical Records

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 10; no. 19; p. 6711
• Main Authors: Choi, Yuri, Kim, June-sung, Kwon, In Ho, Kim, Taerim, Kim, Su Min, Cha, Wonchul, Jeong, Jinwoo, Lee, Jae-Ho
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2020
• Subjects: Access control; Applications programs; Caregivers; Computer software industry; Consortia; Design; Electronic data interchange; Electronic health records; Electronic medical records; Electronic records; Emergency medical care; Emergency medical services; emergency medicine; Hospital information systems; Hospitals; Information storage and retrieval systems; Information systems; Interoperability; Laboratories; Management; Medical records; Mobile applications; Patients; Personal health; personal health records; Privacy; Product development; Smartphones; Technology application; South Korea
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app10196711

Collecting patient’s medical data is essential for emergency care. Although hospital-tethered personal health records (PHRs) can provide accurate data, they are not available as electronic information when the hospital does not develop and supply PHRs. The objective of this research was to evaluate whether a mobile app can assemble health data from different hospitals and enable interoperability. Moreover, we identified numerous barriers to overcome for putting health data into one place. The new mobile PHR (mPHR) application was developed and evaluated according to the four phases of the system development life cycle: defining input data and functions, developing a prototype, developing a mobile application, and implementation testing. We successfully introduced the FirstER (First for Emergency Room) platform on 23 September 2019. Additionally, validation in three tertiary hospitals has been carried out since the launch date. From 14 October to 29 November 2019, 1051 cases registered with the FirstER, and the total download count was 15,951 records. We developed and successfully implemented the mPHR service, which can be used as a health information exchange tool in emergency care, by integrating medical records from three different tertiary hospitals. By recognizing the significance and limitations of this service, it is necessary to study the development and implementation of mPHR services that are more suitable for emergency care.