Up your game: Consumers want online access to their info, providers are required to offer it

“If patients are the blockbuster drug, online access is the active ingredient,” said Christine Bechtel, MPS, president and CEO of Bechtel Health Advisory Group, speaking at a webinar on patient electronic access to health information.

Patient access to their own health information has been a priority of the federal government for some time but the policies in place don’t necessarily align with what’s happening on the ground, she said.

Bechtel works with the Get My Health Data campaign, which not only aims to help consumers get access but help stakeholders troubleshoot along the way by providing resources for both patients and providers.

“Electronic access is both a right and the right thing to do,” she said. Thus, the campaign is working on creating a better environment by fostering consumer demand and provider awareness. They also want to help people understand the value of health data, how patients should request it and how providers should respond to those requests.

Bechtel also discussed the results from a survey conducted on the fifth anniversary of the HITECH Act. About 2,000 people across the country responded to questions about EHRs and their health information. According to the results, about 86 percent of those with online access use it at least once. “That’s a huge proportion. About 40 percent said they have online access. Even among respondents with paper records, 64 percent said online access is important.”

Most respondents said they primarily use their online access to review test results, view their history and schedule appointments. Thirty-eight percent of consumers have downloaded their medical records and history. That’s “going to come into play really importantly,” said Bechtel, because that means consumers are “not just interested in seeing their information, they want to take it with them to do important things around managing their care.”

More frequent access translates to dramatically higher percentages of patients who report strong benefits, Bechtel said. Almost three-quarters (71 percent) said having online access improved their desire to do something about their health. That means increased knowledge of their health and improved ability to communicate with care teams.

The survey revealed that 90 percent trust their main doctor and other care professionals to protect their privacy and two-thirds said electronic records are better able to protect their privacy. “Online access can buttress people’s trust,” Bechtel said.

The Office of Civil Rights just clarified that patients have a right to request an electronic copy of their records and providers have to do so if they can. “It’s not a matter of what you’re willing to do. It’s a matter of what you’re capable of doing.” If the provider cannot readily produce the requested format, the provider and patient must come to an agreed upon format.

“Once you do this, you really start to understand the power of online access,” she said. You also begin to understand how difficult it can be to pull the information together. That’s why the campaign has “tracers” who go seek access to their information and then report back. “We want to know who’s great at it and where it’s hard and why.”

The feedback gathered so far indicates that patient portals are bright spots, being the fastest and easiest way for patients to get access, but they’re not perfect. Some don’t offer the strongest set of data, she said, and they are individually driven by particular institutions.

While the same federal policies are in place nationwide, implementation has been widely variable, Bechtel said. “There are a lot of different ways things can break down by department, etc.”

She recommended that healthcare providers bring together their record request and health IT staffs to determine how best to meet requests, whether patients are getting data they need and can use and where there is room for improvement.

“Oftentimes, the IT department that handles view, download and transmit processes are completely different from the records request department,” Bechtel said. “Bringing the two together can help effectively meet requests and meet the spirit of what patients are looking for.”