Employees' perceptions of sharing employer-sponsored personal health records

Abstract

Employers are still grappling with the decision to use electronic personal health record (PHR) systems as an added corporate benefit to employees. Prior research has shown a significant impact on the employer-employee relationship depending on an employee's decision to accept and use PHR systems. Though emerging consumer health information technologies encourage users to gain control of their personal health information and share it with other parties, less attention has been given to identifying employees' perceptions in an environment where employees are given a data sharing capability and control over their health and well-being data's use. We report the findings from an exploratory study conducted among office-based employees on their preferences in sharing health and well-being data among different stakeholders in an occupational health care setting. Data analysis of 340 office-based employees' preferences in sharing different categories of health and well-being data among various parties reveals that the majority of the employees are ready to share work environment related data with their employer rather than personal health-related data. Comparatively, a majority of office-based employees were ready to share data on all their health and well-being factors except their work environment related data with family members. These findings suggest that PHR system designs that focus on sharing the overall health and well-being of employees and employee-controlled data, with a high attention to work environment factors in the organisation's setting, have a greater chance of acceptance.