USA: 25 million PHR users registered by 2009

SPOTLIGHT REPORT on PHR (Personal Health Records)
Report Date: July 31, 2007 Report ID: SR-PHR-07312007-87A 111 pages
Excerpted in our blog at marketintellnow.blogspot.com from 6/25 – 7/31/2007

PHR is not a gadget-play; it solves two real problems that are often forgotten in the rush to debate non-essential side issues like security*, portability et al:

[1] It connects sick people more profoundly to the concept of getting better, or maintaining the status quo, and
[2] It lowers healthcare costs at the same time it reduces mistakes.

With better execution by technology vendors-- those both here now and coming in-- PHR will hit the 25 million active user mark in the USA by the end of 2009, from a mere fraction of that today, driven by steady growth in the PROVIDER (EMR-extended) and PAYER segments, and
furious growth in the EMPLOYER segment.

* The security objection is mostly held by consumers without Awareness or Need.

Some other excerpts that are quoted from MarketIntellNow that support my thoughts:

• Awareness is low-- but among those who have Awareness, there are 22 million ready Netizens, per our ANWO™ survey-- these consumers have Need, a Willingness to Pay (this means sustain ads as necessary), and no meaningful Objections. And the demographic is pretty homogenous (thus easy to target, think women 35-54 as the sweet spot).
• Prior to the shakeout of 2005-06, there were dozens of PHR vendors, and too often not the right ones (read: side business by a busy-but-ambitious physician). Now you have a compelling set of potent companies run by people who get Web 1.0 ... and even are beginning to get Web 2.0.
• Just as consumers won't populate their own records, they won't pay for PHR, either. But there's plenty of extractable value elsewhere in the supply chain such that PHR still will rise. And yes, some are bringing pure ad monetization models to PHR (WebMD now, perhaps soon Google and Microsoft), and nothing will more rapidly expand market awareness

... my thoughts from browsing this Rainy Saturday morning...
till later,
-jp