Background and Aim: Personal Health Record (PHR) systems play a key role in employing patient-centered care. Besides, the inclination to use Internet services has increased in recent years. The goal of this study is to describe the needed requirements for developing the proposed hybrid PHR model in a social network.
Materials and Methods: Using a descriptive study, a hybrid PHR model was designed in this paper to be implemented in the social health network. Then, by using observation, introspection and questionnaire methods, the requirements of the proposed social network were listed. The elicited requirements were then analyzed by SPSS 16 using descriptive statistics (absolute frequency). Finally, the proposed system was described in the Software Requirement Specification (SRS) standard format.
Results: The proposed hybrid PHR model has benefits of all existing PHR models and is most consistent with PHR definition (individuals control and manage their PHR). It is also applicable and reliable both for individuals and physicians. The results indicated that the proposed system had PHR capabilities as well as social network functionalities. So, the possibility of creating relations between individuals provided more benefits in comparison to other PHR models.
Conclusion: By providing reliable information, the social health network can improve patient-physician relationships. As a result, the proposed social health network can make possible the utilization of web 2.0 and social network capabilities in the healthcare field as well as the benefits of PHR records and patient-centered care.
