This week, researchers at VCU Health (Virginia Commonwealth University) published a new paper aimed at better understanding what patients at VCU Health think about access to notes. The article by Mishra et al. reported that “access to medical encounter notes… is not well understood beyond select health care systems.”
Many of the high-level findings of the study mirror that of other OpenNotes-related research. Highlights are:
- The majority of patients who read notes (85%) thought OpenNotes helped them take better care of themselves without increasing worry (94%) or contacting the physician after reading the note (91%).
- Patients who choose to access their primary care and specialists’ online medical records perceive benefits of OpenNotes.
- A qualitative analysis of comments revealed positive benefits and several potential patient portal improvement opportunities which could inform implementation of OpenNotes at other health systems.
The full article, Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Patients’ Perceptions of the Patient Portal Experience with OpenNotes, can be found online in the January 2019 issue of Applied Clinical Informatics.
