Introduction to Sri Lankan PHR- Media Conference

Press conference

A client friendly and physician accepted Personal Health Record relevant to Sri Lanka

"The Sri Lankan Personal Health Record (PHR) System” is a new innovative solution for most of the existing health issues about medical record keeping. This helps to maintain Personal Health Records by the patient with modern state-of-the-art technology. It is an online patient portal and free service. This received a certificate of appreciation under the Health and Environment category at the E-Swabhimani 2012 awards ceremony held recently.

This product is a tool to overcome three main issues related to provision of healthcare in the country. It helps to reduce errors, unnecessary investigations and wastage of time during patient-doctor encounters.

Similar products are in use in developed counties like USA, Canada, and Australia. Those are national programmes with government commitment. USA promotes this with legal back-up and financial reimbursement to doctors who use such systems in practice.

There are two critical factors, which affect the sustainability of a PHR. They are awareness about the usefulness of a PHR among stakeholders involved in provision of health care and attitudes of the community. Those factors are difficult to overcome without mass media support.

The SLMA was organized a press conference on 01^st of  March 2013 at 2.00 pm at the SLMA Auditorium at Wijerama House, 6 Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 07 with a view to raising awareness about this new innovation, the Sri Lankan PHR. We have invited leading media organization to participate in the media conference. It was successfully held with around thirty media organizations.

This event was addressed by the Dr B j C Perera, President of the SLMA, Prof Vagira Desanayake  President of the Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka and Dr Deepal Wijesooriya Inventor of Sri Lankan PHR System.

This media conference was focused on the following 

·       What is a Personal Health Record (PHR) system?

·       Advantages of the PHR system and how it would impact on future health challenges

·       PHR systems in other countries

·       Implementation of PHR

·       What is expected from the media for sustainability of the “Sri Lankan PHR”

·       The potential impact of the Sri Lankan PHR on the health system in the future.

More information about Sri Lankan PHR can be accessed by www.sharedcarevault.info and https://www.srilankanphr.info/web sites.