Collaborative pushes access to patient info | EHR Watch

Does technology drive ideas, or do ideas drive technology?

The easy answer is probably “a little bit of both”, but allow us to explain why we ask in the first place?

A few weeks back, we looked at the observations of a Texas doctor who, to put it mildly, doesn’t think too much of current EHR technology. As he put it, “the majority of health care facilities and health care providers still think about medical records the same way they did 100 years ago – as property or proprietary information. A physical medical chart is considered to be the property of the facility or provider who generated the chart even though the patient is considered to be the “owner” of the information contained within the chart.”

Given that view, he notes in a follow-up post, “modern EMR design has advanced very little beyond being a hard drive replacement for the filing cabinet.”

But now let’s look at the OpenNotes project currently underway as a collaboration between Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Geisinger Health System, and Seattle, WA-based Harborview Medical Center.

In a survey conducted beginning in the summer of 2010, nearly 38,000 patients were questioned about the possibility of being able to review the Primary Care Physician’s (PCP) notes following, among other things, an office visit.

Not surprisingly, “more than 90 percent favored making the notes available. Well over half anticipated improved adherence to their medications, 90 percent expected to feel more in control of their care, and four out of five predicted they would take better care of themselves.”

In the wake of the survey, the collaborative has invited patients “to read the notes written by their PCPs following office visits, e-mail correspondence, and phone calls. They are able to view these notes via the secure websites (also referred to as portals) where other portions of their medical records are posted: PatientSite at BIDMC, and MyGeisinger at GHS. At HMC, OpenNotes patients were the first to view notes and other parts of their records via UW Medicine e-care, HMC's electronic portal.”

The project is far from over, but let’s assume that this new approach to record sharing is deemed successful by patients and providers alike. How quickly will the technology change then?

Collaborative pushes access to patient info | EHR Watch