for consumers. In essence this was the promise
of the personal health record, or PHR, a promise
that rose to the peak of inflated expectation a few
years back and then fell to the trough of disillusionment quite quickly [2]. But with Apple’s foray into
the space, this time it could be different.
The key promise, however, is the fusion of
data from multiple sources and use of analytics to
generate user-facing insights. The latter, however, is not there yet. In my last column I argued that
the true empowerment of the patient consumer
is waiting on the data fusion and analytics to
become mainstream. Consumers do not want
just a data repository like a PHR. They want
actionable information that PHR does not provide.
Apple’s announcemen [