There’s no doubt about it: Data is crucial. And giving patients access to their own personal health data can make a difference in care coordination and preventing providers from unnecessarily repeating tests.
Unfortunately, it’s not a walk in the park for patients to obtain access to their information. Even when they are able to view it, the data can be inaccurate or incomplete. On top of that, it often takes a lengthy amount of time for patients to get their hands on the data they need.
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How can we fix this ongoing problem? The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology conducted its own research and weighed in via a recent report.
As such, ONC interviewed 17 customers and analyzed medical release information from 50 health systems in 32 states. It also talked to key stakeholders and four medical record fulfillment administrators.
ONC found that the medical record request process often goes something like this:
- Usually a patient’s desire to request information starts with a trigger, such as a health crisis or switching providers.
- The patient calls their physician’s office to learn how to request records or send them to another provider.
- The patient requests the records, typically by filling out a form in person or completing a form and mailing it.
- Next, the patient waits to hear back, sometimes for up to 30 days.
- Meanwhile, the health system receives and verifies the patient’s request. Only then can it fulfill the patient’s request.
- Finally, the health system completes the patient’s request.
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Suffice it to say, the process is clunky. Both parties involved — patients and health systems — struggle with the undertaking. Patients want complete, accurate records, and they don’t want to feel left in the dark during the request process. Healthcare professionals also long for a more transparent procedure, as well as an interoperable system that makes it easy to digitally transfer records from one provider to another.
To that end, ONC created a list of potential options for creating an electronic records request procedure.
One such option involves giving patients the opportunity to request and receive records via a patient portal. Organizations could create a progress tracker so patients can easily view the status of their records request. Developing an electronic records request system outside the patient portal would simplify the process. And utilizing e-verification to swiftly confirm the requestor’s identity would ease the burden on healthcare professionals.
“A patient-centered request process benefits consumers and health systems,” ONC concludes. Though the improvement ideas noted in the report “won’t solve larger-scale access and portability issues, … they have the potential to make the records request process less stressful for patients and health systems in the short-term.”
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