Japan Association for Medical Informatics

[AP3-E2-1-02] A Survey of Public Perception Toward Personal Health Record in Japan

*Toshihiro Takeda1, Katsuki Okada1, Shirou Manabe1, Yasushi Matsumura1 (1. Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan)

Personal Health Record, Public Perception, Questionnaire

Background: In Japan, health information is collected when pregnant women, infants, young children, school-age children, students, company employees and elderly adults undergo health checkup programs, immunizations, medical services, and welfare services. To manage this information throughout one’s life, it is useful to collect this information in a personal health record (PHR). To maintain PHR services, either public organizations must provide the service, or the beneficiary user must pay for the service. To facilitate the introduction of PHR services, it is important to understand the public perception of them.
Methods: We used the market intelligence and forecast system provided by Mitsubishi Research Institute. The targets for the questionnaire were men and women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s (n=250 per gender per age group)
Results: Approximately 30% of survey respondents felt they were unhealthy, and approximately 80% showed an interest in health. Approximately 50% reported an intention to use the PHR, and this intention did not differ markedly by the kind of information they could manage. Approximately 45% reported an intention to input healthy information by themselves into the PHR. Approximately 25% reported an intention to pay for the PHR. An administrative agency, research organizations and medical institutions were the preferred operators of the PHR. Approximately 75% reported feeling uneasy about information leakage. Approximately 80% were positive about the secondary use of anonymous data. An administrative agency, research organizations and medical institutions were the preferred users of anonymized data.
Conclusion: A PHR service wherein users manage their own healthy information included constant needs. The willingness to pay a fee for PHR services and the possibility of allowing secondary use of data was confirmed.