JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Supporting recruitment of clinical trials using software tools integrated into medical care environments, so called patient recruitment systems (PRSs), recently increased. PRSs in literature are integrated in electronic medical records (EMRs), electronic health records (EHRs), and also personal health records (PHRs) integrating PRSs are mentioned. Further patient or medical records available are EHRs for distinct medical conditions (electronic medical case record (ECR); ger: Elektronische Fallakte) and personal electronic health records (PEHRs). But yet, the applicability of these different types of patient records for integration with PRSs has to be researched.

Objective:

Thus, this paper describes the different types of patient records and evaluates their applicability for integration with PRSs.

Methods:

Requirements on PRSs were gathered from literature and unstructured interviews with stakeholders in a previous study. These requirements were amended and afterwards evaluated by comparison to functionality and definition of EMR, EHR, ECR, PHR PEHR. Definitions of EMR, EHR, ECR, PHR and PEHR were taken from literature analysis concerning definitions of the record types.

Results:

All requirements could be partially met by at least one of these types of patient records. Only one requirement was fully met by all five types. According to the analysis PEHRs fulfill most requirements on PRSs. PEHRs especially fulfill patient empowerment and medical history integration requirements.

Conclusions:

PEHRs are the most applicable records, when it comes to integration with PRSs. Thus, PRS integration with PEHRs is worth further research. Clinical Trial: No trial has been performed.