Patient access to online electronic medical records (EMRs) is increasing and may offer benefits to patients. However, the inherent complexity of medicine may cause confusion. We elucidate characteristics and health behaviors of patients who report confusion after reading their doctors’ notes online. We analyzed data from 4,528 patients in Boston, MA, central Pennsylvania, and Seattle, WA, who were granted online access to their primary care doctors’ clinic notes and who viewed at least one note during the 1-year intervention. Three percent of patients reported confusion after reading their visit notes.
Healthcare Transparency
Digital Doctor (Practice Economics) – OpenNotes: Transparency in health care
Transparency, until recently, was rarely associated with health care. Not anymore. For better and sometimes worse, there is a revolutionary movement toward transparency in all facets of health care: transparency of costs, outcomes, quality, service, and reputation. Full transparency has now come to medical records in the form of OpenNotes. This is a patient-centered initiative…
Ob.Gyn News: Full transparency comes to medical records
Transparency, until recently, was rarely associated with health care. Not anymore. For better and sometimes worse, there is a revolutionary movement toward transparency in all facets of health care: transparency of costs, outcomes, quality, service, and reputation. Full transparency now has come to medical records in the form of OpenNotes. This is a patient-centered initiative…
Cancer Cytopathology – Going Mainstream: Online Sharing of Test Results With Patients
Outside the walls of medicine, seismic shifts are affecting how health professionals do their jobs and how the public experiences care. People are harnessing information previously outside their reach and are connecting with one another online in ways not imagined a few years ago. With ready access to the Internet and the use of always-on…
Forbes: New Poll Shows Two‒Thirds Of Doctors Reluctant To Share Health Data With Patients
The polling question was simple. Should patients have access to their entire medical record ‒ including MD notes, any audio recordings, etc…? For many, the response by over 2,300 physicians came as no real surprise. 49% ‒ Access to all records should only be given on a case‒by‒case basis 34% ‒ Yes, Always 17% ‒…
Dermatology in an Age of Fully Transparent Electronic Medical Records
More than 4 decades have passed since the call for “giving patients their medical records” was first proposed to increase patient engagement in health care delivery.1 Today, this vision—once considered radical—is quickly becoming reality, with millions of Americans routinely accessing their medical records through web-based patient portals.1
The electronic health record content that patients can access online is expanding to include physicians’ documentation of patient visits. Recent studies evaluating OpenNotes, a patient-centered initiative enabling online access to providers’ clinical notes, have demonstrated high levels of patient utilization and improved self-reported understanding of care planning and medication adherence, resulting in patients “feeling more in control of their health care.”1
The Healthcare Blog: Opening the Care Conversation Through Open Notes
It’s a memory aid. It’s truth serum. Using it can transform relationships forever. These may sound like come-ons for the type of product typically hawked on late-night television. But in fact, they’re some of the things people are saying about OpenNotes. OpenNotes isn’t a product, but an idea: That the notes doctors and other clinicians write…
The Washington Post: How is the doctor-patient relationship changing? It’s going electronic.
Thanks to technology, Gary Sullivan enjoys a new kind of relationship with his doctor. If he wakes up with a routine health question, the 73-year-old retired engineer simply taps out a secure message into his doctor’s electronic health records system. His Kaiser Permanente physician will answer later that day, sparing Sullivan a visit to the…
The Washington Post: There’s lots of health-care technology out there. How do you choose?
The increasing digitization of health care has ushered in a wide array of technological options, pushing patients to read up on them and make good choices. Here’s what the experts say: Be a wise consumer. You wouldn’t buy a car without reading the reviews and making sure it’s safe. “Patients should use the same approach…
Psychiatric Times: Transparent Notes in Psychiatry
Demystification of the psychiatric experience through transparency with documentation can replace anxiety with empowerment. The trend toward transparent documentation has potential for many benefits, yet it remains a provocative concept for the field of psychiatry. The OpenNotes initiative that began with sharing primary care notes online and in real time with patients has proved to…
