What Is Patient-Generated Health Data, Why Is It Important?

The regulatory push for better patient data access, coupled with the insurgence of remote patient monitoring technology, has brought to the forefront a key type of health information: patient-generated health data.

As healthcare organizations across the country issue apps and other services that allow patients to view and download their EHRs and patient portals, any are leveraging tools that will work the other way around. In other words, more patient data access apps are letting patients contribute their own medical information on the record, too.

Health IT has made important advances in recent years that can help expand the use of PGHD. For one thing, remote patient monitoring has become increasingly accessible. The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, emphasized the importance of RPM tools and accelerated new payment mechanisms.

Clinicians employed PGHD, both in its sophisticated tech-enabled form and in simpler media, to keep an eye on chronic care patients.