Patient advocates and safety experts encourage adoption of transparent health records, but sceptics worry that shared notes may offend patients, erode trust or promote defensive medicine. As ...electronic health records disseminate, such disparate views fuel policy debates about risks and benefits of sharing visit notes with patients through portals.
Presurveys and postsurveys from 99 volunteer doctors at three US sites who participated in OpenNotes and postsurveys from 4592 patients who read at least one note and submitted a survey.
Patients read notes to be better informed and because they were curious; about a third read them to check accuracy. In total, 7% (331) of patients reported contacting their doctor's office about their note. Of these, 29% perceived an error, and 85% were satisfied with its resolution. Nearly all patients reported feeling better (37%) or the same (62%) about their doctor. Patients who were older (>63), male, non-white, had fair/poor self-reported health or had less formal education were more likely to report feeling better about their doctor. Among doctors, 26% anticipated documentation errors, and 44% thought patients would disagree with notes. After a year, 53% believed patient satisfaction increased, and 51% thought patients trusted them more. None reported ordering more tests or referrals.
Despite concerns about errors, offending language or defensive practice, transparent notes overall did not harm the patient-doctor relationship. Rather, doctors and patients perceived relational benefits. Traditionally more vulnerable populations-non-white, those with poorer self-reported health and those with fewer years of formal education-may be particularly likely to feel better about their doctor after reading their notes. Further informing debate about OpenNotes, the findings suggest transparent records may improve patient satisfaction, trust and safety.
Little information exists about what primary care physicians (PCPs) and patients experience if patients are invited to read their doctors' office notes.
To evaluate the effect on doctors and patients ...of facilitating patient access to visit notes over secure Internet portals.
Quasi-experimental trial of PCPs and patient volunteers in a year-long program that provided patients with electronic links to their doctors' notes.
Primary care practices at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Massachusetts, Geisinger Health System (GHS) in Pennsylvania, and Harborview Medical Center (HMC) in Washington.
105 PCPs and 13,564 of their patients who had at least 1 completed note available during the intervention period.
Portal use and electronic messaging by patients and surveys focusing on participants' perceptions of behaviors, benefits, and negative consequences.
11,155 corrected of 13,564 patients with visit notes available opened at least 1 note (84% at BIDMC, 82% corrected at GHS, and 47% at HMC). Of 5219 corrected patients who opened at least 1 note and completed a postintervention survey, 77% to 59% corrected across the 3 sites reported that open notes helped them feel more in control of their care; 60% to 78% of those taking medications reported increased medication adherence; 26% to 36% had privacy concerns; 1% to 8% reported that the notes caused confusion, worry, or offense; and 20% to 42% reported sharing notes with others. The volume of electronic messages from patients did not change. After the intervention, few doctors reported longer visits (0% to 5%) or more time addressing patients' questions outside of visits (0% to 8%), with practice size having little effect; 3% to 36% of doctors reported changing documentation content; and 0% to 21% reported taking more time writing notes. Looking ahead, 59% to 62% of patients believed that they should be able to add comments to a doctor's note. One out of 3 patients believed that they should be able to approve the notes' contents, but 85% to 96% of doctors did not agree. At the end of the experimental period, 99% of patients wanted open notes to continue and no doctor elected to stop.
Only 3 geographic areas were represented, and most participants were experienced in using portals. Doctors volunteering to participate and patients using portals and completing surveys may tend to offer favorable feedback, and the response rate of the patient surveys (41%) may further limit generalizability.
Patients accessed visit notes frequently, a large majority reported clinically relevant benefits and minimal concerns, and virtually all patients wanted the practice to continue. With doctors experiencing no more than a modest effect on their work lives, open notes seem worthy of widespread adoption.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Drane Family Fund, the Richard and Florence Koplow Charitable Foundation, and the National Cancer Institute.
Abstract
We examined the acceptability and effects of delivering doctors’ visit notes electronically (via OpenNotes) to patients and care partners with authorized access to patients’ electronic ...medical records. Adult patients and care partners at Geisinger Health System were surveyed at baseline and after 12 months of exposure to OpenNotes. Reporting on care partner access to OpenNotes, patients and care partners stated that they had better agreement about patient treatment plans and more productive discussions about their care. At follow-up, patients were more confident in their ability to manage their health, felt better prepared for office visits, and reported understanding their care better than at baseline. Care partners were more likely to access and use patient portal functionality and reported improved communication with patients’ providers at follow-up. Our findings suggest that offering patients and care partners access to doctors’ notes is acceptable and improves communication and patients’ confidence in managing their care.
ABSTRACT
Health information technology has been embraced as a strategy to facilitate patients’ access to their health information and engagement in care. However, not all patients are able to access, ...or are capable of using, a computer or mobile device. Although family caregivers assist individuals with some of the most challenging and costly health needs, their role in health information technology is largely undefined and poorly understood. This perspective discusses challenges and opportunities of engaging family caregivers through the use of consumer-oriented health information technology. We compile existing evidence to make the case that involving family caregivers in health information technology as desired by patients is technically feasible and consistent with the principles of patient-centered and family-centered care. We discuss how more explicit and purposeful engagement of family caregivers in health information technology could advance clinical quality and patient safety by increasing the transparency, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of patient health information across settings of care. Finally, we describe how clarifying and executing patients’ desires to involve family members or friends through health information technology would provide family caregivers greater legitimacy, convenience, and timeliness in health system interactions, and facilitate stronger partnerships between patients, family caregivers, and health care professionals.
Objective To describe the characteristics and online practices of patients and “care partners” who share explicit access to a patient portal account at a large integrated health system that ...implemented shared access functionality in 2003.
Materials and Methods Survey of 323 patients and 389 care partners at Geisinger Health System with linked information regarding access and use of patient portal functionality.
Results Few (0.4%) registered adult patient portal users shared access to their account. Patients varied in age (range: 18–102); more than half had a high school education or less (53.6%). Patient motivations for sharing access included: to help manage care (41.9%), for emergency reasons (29.7%), lack of technology experience (18.4%), or care partner request (10.0%). Care partners were parents (39.8%), adult children (27.9%), spouses (26.2%), and other relatives (6.1%). Patients were more likely than care partners to have inadequate health literacy (54.8% versus 8.8%, P < .001) and less confident in their ability to manage their care (53.0% versus 88.1%; P < .001). Care partners were more likely than patients to perform health management activities electronically (95.5% versus 48.4%; P < .001), access the patient portal (89.2% versus 30.3%; P < .001), and use patient portal functionality such as secure messaging (39.6% versus 13.9%; P < .001). Care partners used their own credentials (89.1%) and patient credentials (23.3%) to access the patient portal.
Discussion and Conclusion Shared access is an underused strategy that may bridge patients’ health literacy deficits and lack of technology experience and that helps but does not fully resolve concerns regarding patient and care partner identity credentials.
Open notes: doctors and patients signing on Delbanco, Tom; Walker, Jan; Darer, Jonathan D ...
Annals of internal medicine,
07/2010, Letnik:
153, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Few patients read their doctors' notes, despite having the legal right to do so. As information technology makes medical records more accessible and society calls for greater transparency, patients' ...interest in reading their doctors' notes may increase. Inviting patients to review these notes could improve understanding of their health, foster productive communication, stimulate shared decision making, and ultimately lead to better outcomes. Yet, easy access to doctors' notes could have negative consequences, such as confusing or worrying patients and complicating rather than improving patient-doctor communication. To gain evidence about the feasibility, benefits, and harms of providing patients ready access to electronic doctors' notes, a team of physicians and nurses have embarked on a demonstration and evaluation of a project called OpenNotes. The authors describe the intervention and share what they learned from conversations with doctors and patients during the planning stages. The team anticipates that "open notes" will spread and suggests that over time, if drafted collaboratively and signed by both doctors and patients, they might evolve to become contracts for care.
Little is known about what primary care physicians (PCPs) and patients would expect if patients were invited to read their doctors' office notes.
To explore attitudes toward potential benefits or ...harms if PCPs offered patients ready access to visit notes.
The PCPs and patients completed surveys before joining a voluntary program that provided electronic links to doctors' notes.
Primary care practices in 3 U.S. states.
Participating and nonparticipating PCPs and adult patients at primary care practices in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
Doctors' and patients' attitudes toward and expectations of open visit notes, their ideas about the potential benefits and risks, and demographic characteristics.
110 of 114 participating PCPs (96%), 63 of 140 nonparticipating PCPs (45%), and 37 856 of 90 203 patients (42%) completed surveys. Overall, 69% to 81% of participating PCPs across the 3 sites and 92% to 97% of patients thought open visit notes were a good idea, compared with 16% to 33% of nonparticipating PCPs. Similarly, participating PCPs and patients generally agreed with statements about potential benefits of open visit notes, whereas nonparticipating PCPs were less likely to agree. Among participating PCPs, 74% to 92% anticipated improved communication and patient education, in contrast to 45% to 67% of nonparticipating PCPs. More than one half of participating PCPs (50% to 58%) and most nonparticipating PCPs (88% to 92%) expected that open visit notes would result in greater worry among patients; far fewer patients concurred (12% to 16%). Thirty-six percent to 50% of participating PCPs and 83% to 84% of nonparticipating PCPs anticipated more patient questions between visits. Few PCPs (0% to 33%) anticipated increased risk for lawsuits. Patient enthusiasm extended across age, education, and health status, and 22% anticipated sharing visit notes with others, including other doctors.
Access to electronic patient portals is not widespread, and participation was limited to patients using such portals. Response rates were higher among participating PCPs than nonparticipating PCPs; many participating PCPs had small patient panels.
Among PCPs, opinions about open visit notes varied widely in terms of predicting the effect on their practices and benefits for patients. In contrast, patients expressed considerable enthusiasm and few fears, anticipating both improved understanding and more involvement in care. Sharing visit notes has broad implications for quality of care, privacy, and shared accountability.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio, Drane Family Fund, and Koplow Charitable Foundation.
Online access to doctors' notes: patient concerns about privacy Vodicka, Elisabeth; Mejilla, Roanne; Leveille, Suzanne G ...
JMIR. Journal of medical internet research/Journal of medical internet research,
09/2013, Letnik:
15, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Offering patients online access to medical records, including doctors' visit notes, holds considerable potential to improve care. However, patients may worry about loss of privacy when accessing ...personal health information through Internet-based patient portals. The OpenNotes study provided patients at three US health care institutions with online access to their primary care doctors' notes and then collected survey data about their experiences, including their concerns about privacy before and after participation in the intervention.
To identify patients' attitudes toward privacy when given electronic access to their medical records, including visit notes.
The design used a nested cohort study of patients surveyed at baseline and after a 1-year period during which they were invited to read their visit notes through secure patient portals. Participants consisted of 3874 primary care patients from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston, MA), Geisinger Health System (Danville, PA), and Harborview Medical Center (Seattle, WA) who completed surveys before and after the OpenNotes intervention. The measures were patient-reported levels of concern regarding privacy associated with online access to visit notes.
32.91% of patients (1275/3874 respondents) reported concerns about privacy at baseline versus 36.63% (1419/3874 respondents) post-intervention. Baseline concerns were associated with non-white race/ethnicity and lower confidence in communicating with doctors, but were not associated with choosing to read notes or desire for continued online access post-intervention (nearly all patients with notes available chose to read them and wanted continued access). While the level of concern among most participants did not change during the intervention, 15.54% (602/3874 respondents, excluding participants who responded "don't know") reported more concern post-intervention, and 12.73% (493/3874 respondents, excluding participants who responded "don't know") reported less concern.
When considering online access to visit notes, approximately one-third of patients had concerns about privacy at baseline and post-intervention. These perceptions did not deter participants from accessing their notes, suggesting that the benefits of online access to medical records may outweigh patients' perceived risks to privacy.
Under a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy program, esketamine nasal spray CIII requires self administration at a certified treatment center. Our objective was to identify factors associated ...with esketamine initiation and continuation.
A retrospective observational cohort study was conducted among US adults who met treatment-resistant depression (TRD) criteria. Cases (n = 966) initiated esketamine between October 11, 2019, and February 28, 2022, and were compared to controls (n = 39,219) with TRD but no esketamine use. Outcomes included initiation, induction (8 administrations within 45 days), and interruptions (30-day treatment gap). Comorbid psychiatric conditions were identified using
codes.
Cases resided significantly closer to treatment centers (8.9 vs 20.3 miles). Compared to 0-9 miles, initiation rate decreased by 11.9%, 50.8%, 68.1%, 75.9%, and 92.8% for individuals residing 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50+ miles from a center. After adjustment, factors associated with increased likelihood of initiation were posttraumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder with suicidal ideation, and male sex, while increasing distance, substance use disorder, Medicaid, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), and older age were associated with lower likelihood. Factors associated with lower likelihood of completing induction were Medicaid, low socioeconomic status (SES), CCI, and Hispanic communities. Factors associated with increased likelihood of interruption were alcohol use disorder, distance, and minority communities, while generalized anxiety disorder and Medicaid were associated with lower likelihood.
Travel distance, insurance, low SES, and minority communities are potential barriers to treatment. Alternative care models may be needed to ensure adequate access to care.
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