Health Information Systems by Adrian Stavert-Dobson

Author:Adrian Stavert-Dobson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

9.6 Harm Arising from Patients Viewing Their Own Clinical Data

Increasingly healthcare organisations are making it easier to interact electronically with their patients. Securely opening up the patient record for their consumption has enormous benefits in better engaging patients in their care. Individuals often have difficulty recalling the details of a consultation with their healthcare provider after the event. By enabling access to their own notes patients not only have a single point of reference but they also benefit from being empowered to raise concerns when the information appears to be inaccurate or incomplete. Close examination of the processes however reveals that these features could potentially be a source of harm, again depending on how one chooses to define it. There are at least two distinct concerning scenarios.Firstly one is required to examine the extended effects of incorrect data in the clinical record. For example, suppose that data erroneously gives the impression that a patient’s diabetes was well-controlled when, in fact, this was not the case. Potentially the patient could change the manner in which they approach their condition, become lax in managing their diet or reduce their compliance with medication instructions. A record can be misleading if the underlying data is incorrect but also, and perhaps more likely, when the manner in which it is presented to the consumer is suboptimal. Patients are unlikely to be expert users of the system and translating the entire medical record into a form that facilitates safe patient interpretation is no easy task.

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