The Power of Personal Health Records?

I have written and researched about Personal Health Records - and had a Google Health account until the project was closed - but I am not sure about the future for PHR anymore.  I joined a few teleconferences for the HL7 standards group on PHR and know how much work they are doing trying to define them in terms of HL7 and interoperability. Here is an article they recommend < HIMSS blog >.  The research has shown more doctors need to adopt EMR before PHR become viable.  And it just maybe more of us need to be chronically ill to speed up their adoption - healthy people don't need to use them!  Be that as it may, time will tell what the future has in store.  My hope will be that the PHR will gain more clinical efficacy and effectiveness for physicians to place them in the trust of their patients.  I have no doubt that a great many people will be using PHR or equivalents to track their wellness in novel ways, without their physicians.