Designing an Electronic Personal Health Record for Professional Iranian Athletes

BACKGROUND By providing sports organizations with electronic records and instruments that can be accessed at any time or place, specialized care can be offered to athletes regardless of injury location, and this makes the follow-up from first aid through to full recovery more efficient. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to develop an electronic personal health record for professional Iranian athletes. PATIENTS AND METHODS First, a comparative study was carried out on the types of professional athletes'existing handheld and electronic health information management systems currently being used in Iran and leading countries in the field of sports medicine including; Australia, Canada and the United States. Then a checklist was developed containing a minimum dataset of professional athletes' personal health records and distributed to the people involved, who consisted of 50 specialists in sports medicine and health information management, using the Delphi method. Through the use of data obtained from this survey, a basic paper model of professional athletes' personal health record was constructed and then an electronic model was created accordingly. RESULTS Access to information in the electronic record was through a web-based, portal system. The capabilities of this system included: access to information at any time and location, increased interaction between the medical team, comprehensive reporting and effective management of injuries, flexibility and interaction with financial, radiology and laboratory information systems. CONCLUSIONS It is suggested that a framework should be created to promote athletes' medical knowledge and provide the education necessary to manage their information. This would lead to improved data quality and ultimately promote the health of community athletes.