Personal electronic health records: MySpace or HealthSpace? (BMJ
May 13, 2008BMJ, doi:10.1136/bmj.39567.550301.80 (published 6 May 200 
The NHS, through Connecting for Health, is introducing two types of online health record for everybody in England—the summary care record and HealthSpace.1 2 The summary care record is being introduced in five “early adopter” pilot sites. An independent evaluation of this implementation was released this week.3 Delays in deployment, with summary care records in only two sites to date, mean that the evaluation cannot provide the concrete answers that many people were hoping to see regarding consent, patient acceptance, and clinical benefits.
The summary care record is a centrally stored summary of health information created initially from general practitioner records. It contains information on current medications, adverse reactions, and allergies. Proponents of the summary care record expect to see improved patient safety, with reductions in preventable errors, improved access to vital information, and better informed patients.1
HealthSpace is a separate initiative that allows patients to record selected data in their . . . [Full text of this article]
As the EHR is a summary it may not include more detailed information held by contributing care providers. For example the nursing progress notes may have been recorded by the hospital in the patient chart but may not have been included in the event summary for the hospital admission.