The ever-growing demand for acquiring, managing and exploiting patient health related information has led to the development of many e-Health systems and applications. However, despite the number of systems already developed and the apparent need for such systems, end users can only collect online and exploit, only a limited set of information for health purposes in the context of personalized, preventive and participatory medicine. To this direction, this paper initially presents the personal health record (PHR) concept, related work and best practices for the development of PHR systems in a standardized manner. It also outlines the proposal for meaningful use criteria in the United States (US) and the health level seven (HL7) personal health record system functional model (PHR-S FM). Focus is put on trying to link core functionality modules of the Integrated Care Solutions TM PHR system, designed to support the citizen, paying emphasis on wellbeing, home care and the management of chronic diseases with PHR-S FM personal health functions, in a preliminary effort towards the exploration of functional models to support interoperability. Based on accumulated experiences from many European Union (EU) research projects, the paper concludes by providing directions towards achieving wider PHR adoption and meaningful use.
