Human values and personal health records

Abstract

Personal health records (PHRs) are on the rise in recent years. To understand why and how people use (or not use) PHRs, it is critical to understand what they value. This paper reports preliminary findings from a thematic analysis of journal articles related to PHRs. Our analysis identified six values with ethical import as being particularly salient to the use of personally identifiable information in this literature: privacy, confidentiality, security, transparency, trust, and human agency.