Personal Health Record Use and Association with Immunizations and Well-Child Care Visits Recommendations

ObjectiveTo determine the association of parental use of integrated personal health records (PHRs) with children's adherence to immunization and well-child care (WCC) visit recommendations.Study designFor the immunization and WCC visit measures, we retrospectively analyzed, respectively, 766 and 639 matched pairs at Kaiser Permanente (KP) Hawaii and 2795 and 2448 pairs at KP Northwest who were ≤31 days old at enrollment and continuously enrolled for 2 years between January 2007 and July 2011. The independent variable (≥1 PHR feature used vs none) was matched using propensity scores on parental and children characteristics. The dependent variables were 2 measures from the 2010 Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set: combination 2 immunization (all immunizations vs .05; KP Northwest OR 1.2, 95% CI 1.0-1.3, P < .05). PHR use was associated with better adherence to WCC visit recommendations for both KP Hawaii (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.3-2.9, P < .001) and KP Northwest (OR 2.5, 95% CI 2.1-2.9, P < .001).ConclusionsYoung children whose parents used a PHR were more likely to adhere to the recommended WCC visits in both regions but immunizations in only 1 region.