Background: Ambulatory safety risks including delayed diagnoses or missed abnormal test results are difficult for clinicians to see, because they often occur in the space between visits. Experts advocate greater patient engagement to improve safety, but strategies are limited. Patient access to clinical notes (“OpenNotes”) may help close the safety gap between visits.
Methods: We surveyed patients and families who logged on to the patient portal and had at least one ambulatory note available in the past 12 months at two academic hospitals during June to September 2016, focusing on patient-reported effects of OpenNotes on safety knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes.
Healthcare Disparities/SDOH
Patients perceptions of their doctors’ notes and after‐visit summaries: A mixed methods study of patients at safety‐net clinics
Patients are increasingly offered electronic access to their doctors’ notes, and many consistently receive paper After-Visit Summaries. Specific feedback from patients about notes and summaries are lacking, particularly within safety-net settings.
Patients Typing Their Own Visit Agendas Into an Electronic Medical Record: Pilot in a Safety-Net Clinic
Collaborative agenda setting is a communication skill that helps patients identify concerns early in the clinic visit, possibly diminishing the number of “Oh, by the way” items at the end of visits, and increasing patient satisfaction. Agenda setting, however, is often limited by time constraints.
Electronic medical records (EMRs) offer patients access to their medical data, including doctors’ notes, and have the capability to facilitate increased patient involvement in their health care and also contribute to their health data. OpenNotes is a national initiative, not a software program, that invites patients to review their visit notes written by their doctors, nurses, or other clinicians. Existing OpenNotes research shows enthusiasm among both patients and clinicians, but this is the first Open-Notes study of cogeneration of clinic notes.
Patient access to online radiology reports: Frequency and sociodemographic characteristics associated with use
Rationale and objectives: Our objective was to evaluate the frequency with which patients viewed their online radiology reports in relation to clinical and laboratory notes and identify sociodemographic factors associated with report viewing.
Method and materials: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 129,419 patients who had online patient portal access in our large health system in 2014. We determined whether patients viewed their radiology reports, laboratory reports, and clinical notes. We also collected patient sociodemographic information including gender, age, primary spoken language, race/ethnicity, and insurance status. We performed multivariate analyses to determine significant associations between viewing of radiology reports and viewing of other types of clinical reports and patient characteristics.
Sharing Physician Notes Through an Electronic Portal is Associated With Improved Medication Adherence: Quasi-Experimental Study
Availability of notes following PCP visits was associated with improved adherence by patients prescribed antihypertensive, but not antihyperlipidemic, medications. As the use of fully transparent records spreads, patients invited to read their clinicians’ notes may modify their behaviors in clinically valuable ways.
The urban underserved: attitudes towards gaining full access to electronic medical records
As the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) spreads, health-care organizations are increasingly offering patients online access to their medical records. Studies evaluating patient attitudes towards viewing elements of their records through secure, electronic patient portals have generally not included medically underserved patients or those with HIV/AIDS. The goal of this study was to gain insight into such patients’ attitudes towards online access to their medical records, including their doctors’ visit notes.
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