The patient empowerment portal called Patients Know Best (PKB), originally developed in the UK, is a good example of a modern system for personal health records (PHRs). In Patients Know Best, patients can digitally view and manage their own health information whenever they wish. The portal was founded in 2008 by Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, who was both a doctor and a patient. During his medical consultations he noticed that the exchange of information between health care providers did not function as well as it should. That resulted in higher costs and time investments for patients, doctors and society. He concluded that patients deserved to have a central place in information sharing. Since 2008, the use of the portal has soared. In the UK alone, the patient-managed personal health record system is now available to 6 million people, and it can meanwhile be accessed by patients at over sixty hospitals in the UK, Australia, the USA, Ireland, Germany, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.
