Learning from development of a third-party patient-oriented application using Australian national personal health records system

Large-scale national level Personal Health Record (PHR) has been implemented in Australia. However, usability, data quality and poor functionalities have resulted in low utility affecting enrollment and participation rates by both patients and clinicians alike. Development of new applications deriving secondary utility of data can enhance use of PHRs but there is limited understanding on processes involved in development of third-party applications with nationally run PHRs. This paper prsents an analysis of processes and regulatory requirements for developing applications of data from My Health Record, Australian nationally run PHR and subsequently implementation of a patient oriented software application using data sourced from My Health Record.