Indivo: A personally controlled health record for health information exchange and communication

Abstract

Background. Personally controlled health records (PCHRs), a subset of personal health records (PHRs), enable a patient to assemble, maintain and manage a secure copy of his or her medical data. Indivo (formerly PING) is an open source, open standards PCHR with an open application programming interface (API). Results. We describe how the PCHR platform can provide standard building blocks for networked PHR applications. Indivo allows the ready integration of diverse sources of medical data under a patient's control through the use of standards-based communication protocols and APIs for connecting PCHRs to existing and future health information systems. Conclusion. The strict and transparent personal control model is designed to encourage widespread participation by patients, healthcare providers and institutions, thus creating the ecosystem for development of innovative, consumer-focused healthcare applications. © 2007 Mandl et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.