Personal health records (PHRs) have been a global trend in recent decade. It has been seen as a concept and tool that could help patients maintaining health, improving their well-being, and supporting communication with healthcare professional etc. Despite the great amount of research about PHR there is no consensus what a PHR actually means in academic literature or other arenas. There are multiple terms in use and multiple definitions which set challenges for rational discourse between citizens/patient, healthcare providers, system developers and policy makers. Especially, when citizens—as key stakeholder—should also be able to understand what those systems are we need clear and understandable definition for PHR’s. In the paper, we conduct a brief survey for different definitions and show the problems that arise with the incoherent use of the term “PHR”.