Geisinger pilot finds patients can help with medical record accuracy
A pilot project at Geisinger Health System demonstrated that patients can be effectively engaged online to improve the quality of the information in their medical records.
Funded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the project invited patients to provide online feedback on the accuracy of their medication list via a patient portal, according to a post on the agency’s blog.
The pilot found that patients are eager to provide feedback on their medication list. Thirty percent of patient feedback forms were completed and in 89 percent of cases, patients requested changes to their medication record.
Also, patient feedback is accurate and useful. On average, patients had 10.7 medications listed, with 2.4 requested changes. In 68 percent of cases, the pharmacist made changes to the medication list in the EHR based on the patient’s feedback, according to the blog post.
“As health information exchange expands, there is the potential for erroneous information to be perpetuated. There is also greater opportunity for patients to help clean up that data. Yet, most institutions do not proactively solicit feedback from patients about their health records,” the authors wrote.
Read the entire blog post.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.