A colleague of mine from my USC days, Guillermo Asper y Valdés, was in Oxford last week for a visit – but asking about UK research on personal health records. He and colleagues in Brazil and the US are undertaking research in this area. If anyone has suggestions of individuals he should contact, please let me know. I think they are interested in the whole range of issues surrounding the development and use of personal health records in the provision of more direct health and medical services. However, they want to understand leading-edge developments cross-nationally in order to contribute to the design of systems in this area. Any thoughts would be appreciated. My own contribution was to note the importance of focusing on the legal-institutional constraints surrounding the development of these systems, and not have too great a focus on the technological breakthroughs.
