personal health record, information technology in future health care system: physicians and nurses view point

introduction: personal health record is an individual–oriented system that is planned for people to access their health information that using other means of support such as knowledge databases to help people to have more active role in their health considering that physicians and nurses have a basic role in its completing, educating and using of this tools, this study was conducted to evaluate the view point of physicians and nurses in this regard. methods: in this descriptive – cross-sectional study, 120 and 250 randomly selected physicians and nurses from affiliated hospitals of kashan university of medical sciences, iran were studied in 2008. data collected using a reliable (spearman-brown, r = 0.82) and valid (face and content) questionnaire in two section; demographic information (age, sex, education and income levels) and objective questions in the form of yes - no and choice question. obtained data analyzed using spss software and descriptive statistics. results: 93.8% of participants believed on the necessity of personal health record and 88.6% on the existence of a coherent format. the most important use was providing information for health care providers (58.1%) and portable storage was the best form of it (39.2%). the most benefits of personal health record were knowledge of patients about their appointment (85.7%) and the most disadvantage was misunderstand of the information (67.6%). the most cause of lack of providing personal health record was unawareness about its advantages (49.7%). conclusion: personal health record from viewpoint of physicians and nurses is necessary and problems and concerns about patient misunderstanding, privacy and security should be eliminated as appropriate.it is recommended that the personal health record provide by the authorities of ministry of health and medical education with cooperating with private section and insurance organizations.