There must be more reasons to have one

 With increasing specialization, coordination can become an issue. PHRs provide data to patients and their proxies that enables them to communicate more effectively with physicians and other providers. This leads to better decisions. PHRs are memory joggers. They provide important links between past and future generations, helping to spot trends and enable inherited conditions to be addressed before they become serious and chronic. PHRs can be indispensable ingredients in increasingly popular Wellness and Disease Management Programs. I regularly find new benefits and value from my PHR. Here are things to help you learn and put Personal Health Records in perspective.
My first experience with health records was to create a list of medical expenses for an income tax return. It proved a disappointing waste of time. After listing all my expenses, I found that I was not eligible to claim a tax deduction. Since that experience, I was ready to dismiss the idea when PHRs were mentioned. Besides my experience, I could not see why anyone would ever need one. I thought doctors kept records for their patients and shared them with those who requested them.
When I watched victims of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters talk about losing their health records when paper files were destroyed along with their homes, doctor's offices and hospitals, I started to see value from PHRs. People had lost many different types of personal papers, but loss of health records was the most serious. Without records, it took doctors providing emergency treatment extra time to get up to speed and prepared to treat a patient. Any delay could mean the difference between life and death. If only there were some way for patients to inform their doctors and keep them that way. At the same time, disasters seemed relatively infrequent. I thought of priorities and realized the relatively low probability of needing a PHR to get better emergency care. There must be more reasons to have one. Furthermore, I was not sure what a PHR should contain to make it useful.
As I thought more and more about PHRs, their value proposition grew. I found many ways to use them, making it especially important to have one. At the same time, I have wondered about the overlap between doctor's and patient's records, what each needs to have and how to update each other for the best possible decision-making information. Complicating matters, every doctor has needs, personal perspectives and preferences that differ from those of patients. Doctor's records are highly likely to vary from one doctor to another, and no one is likely to consolidate records unless doctors are part of a group that shares common data services.