Patients Aren't Accessing Medical Records: IT Solutions Providers Can Change That

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

The Office of The National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has released a report that states that less than one third of consumers access their health records online. This is largely due to healthcare providers not offering the service, and it is likely an area in which you can offer innovative business solutions to your clients.

The Results

According to the report, “The ability of individuals to access and use their online medical records serves as one of the cornerstones of national efforts to increase patient engagement and improve health outcomes.”

Perhaps the most telling statistic is that only three in ten respondents surveyed were even offered access, and of those, half were offered access by their provider. This demonstrates an opportunity for solutions providers to help clients become more comfortable taking initiative in centering their patients in all aspects of their healthcare experience. They will then be more likely to offer their patients access to their records.

Patient Engagement

If you want to engage your providers in centering patients, you will run into some hurdles around patient engagement to solutions including:

• A lack of patient interest: Essentially, healthy patients are too busy enjoying their lives being healthy. They have no desire to tack on an extra trip to the doctor when they’re doing well.
• A lack of doctor interest: …and that’s not just the doctors, it’s their entire office. Many offices lack the support team needed to maintain loyalty programs.
• Difficult systems: Systems are cumbersome and high maintenance. Much of this is because neither doctors nor patients are involved in their design, and even if they are, they’re there in disconnected ways.
• Low-quality solutions: These solutions cost money, so most providers end up defaulting to systems that are already around and entrenched in an old way of thinking.

Patient Portals

Your clients may not believe that solutions like a patient portal that offers EHR access is something their patients will appreciate, but the report tells a different story.

According to the ONC, “A majority of individuals who accessed their online medical record found the information very useful. Seven in 10 individuals nationwide reported that having an online medical record was very or somewhat important. Among individuals who did access their online medical record, more than 90 percent perceived having access as very or somewhat important, and notably, a majority (62 percent) of individuals who did not access their online record considered online access to be somewhat or very important. Together, these findings suggest that even in the early stages of online medical records, individuals do value and find use from basic capabilities to access their online medical record.”

If patients are presented with portal solutions that exhibit the basic values of convenience, connection, support, and individuality, there is no doubt that they will use the systems, and better engage with your clients.

Going Deeper

Your clients will undoubtedly be concerned about security around allowing patients to access their own records. For more on that issue, read “How To Defend Against Security Breaches In Healthcare.”