Health Level Seven (HL7), a healthcare IT standards development organization, has released a ballot to approve its Personal Health Record System Functional Model (PHR-S FM) as a draft standard for trial use (DSTU).

The PHR-S FM defines a set of functions that may be present in PHR systems, and offers guidelines that facilitate health information exchange among different PHR systems and between PHR and EHR systems, according to HL7.

“It can identify to consumers the important functions within a PHR system that can help them make better health decisions,” said Donald Mon, PhD, vice president of practice leadership for the American Health Information Management Association and co-chair of the HL7 PHR work group. “The model also contains requirements to protect the privacy of the individual and the confidentiality of personal health information.”

While the PHR-S FM is not yet a fully ANSI-accredited standard, a DSTU version allows the industry to work with a stable standard for up to two years while it is being refined into an ANSI-accredited version, Mon said.

During the period of trial use:

• Consumers can begin requesting functionality when they select PHR systems.
• Vendors can begin incorporating the model’s requirements into their products.
• Organizations that desire to provide certifications of PHR systems (such as the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology) can begin considering these requirements for certification.

HL7 invites the public to vote on the PHR-S FM until Dec. 1. The model and the ballot package can be downloaded at www.hl7.org/ehr.