This study investigated the hospital discharge process for palliative care patients and their caregivers, focusing on its patient-centeredness, discharge readiness, and links to readmissions.
Inpatient Notes
Family perception of OpenNotes in the neonatal intensive care unit
At the end of the NICU discharge education, completed in the patient portal before discharge, families were offered an anonymous survey on OpenNotes. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on NICU families’ perceptions of OpenNotes, which indicated positive interactions with the doctors’ daily progress notes and gave important suggestions for improvement.
Pediatric open notes: Caregiver experiences since the 21st century Cures Act
While research on the impact of Open Notes in pediatric inpatient settings remains limited, recent findings have improved our understanding by adding actual caregiver experiences to the expectations identified in our initial study. As we move into this new era of transparency, we call for further investigation of the impact of note sharing on health care outcomes for children while continuing to develop strategies to mitigate challenges.
In anticipation of sharing pediatric inpatient notes: Focus group study with stakeholders
Distinct themes identified as benefits of pediatric inpatient Open Notes for parents emerged from all the 5 focus groups. These themes were communication, recapitulation and reinforcement, education, stress reduction, quality control, and improving family-provider relationships. Challenges identified included burden on provider, medical jargon, communication, sensitive content, and decreasing trust.
Sharing Notes With Adolescents and Young Adults Admitted to an Inpatient Psychiatry Unit
Our data suggest that AYA patients with active behavioral health concerns understand and express general satisfaction with their medical documentation. Overall, reading medical documentation seemed to help a greater proportion of research participants as opposed to hindering or having no effect on inpatient counseling and therapy compliance. These are the first data to demonstrate medical note comprehension and satisfaction among AYA patients in vulnerable clinical settings.
Patient Access to Electronic Health Records During Hospitalization
In 2001, the Institute of Medicine recommended improving patient engagement by providing continuous care, allowing patients to be the source of control and fostering transparency with patients and families. Electronic health records (EHRs) facilitate these objectives via the use of patient portals. Giving outpatients direct access to their health information helps clinicians find errors and improves patient satisfaction, although the implications of this type of access have not been well studied in the inpatient setting. This hospital-based study evaluates the experiences of patients, clinicians (including physicians and advanced practice providers), and nurses with immediate (real-time) release of test results and other EHR information through a patient portal.
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