Patient preferences for accessing medical data are shifting, says ONC
To track the use of web-based patient portals and smartphone applications by patients seeking health information, the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT released an analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey data, which regularly collects data on many aspects of health communication.
WHY IT MATTERS
There are a number of highlights in ONC’s new publication, Individuals’ Access and Use of Patient Portals and Smartphone Health Apps by Catherine Strawley and Chelsea Richwine, which details how access to health records has “increased consistently over time .”
The agency reports this in the data briefly it used HINTS to assess progress in patient access during the implementation of the Cures Rule provisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, “which has likely increased demand for access to online health records.”
In the analysis, ONC said the share of individuals across the country who were offered and accessed their online health records or patient portals more than doubled between 2014 and 2022.
Previously, the National Institutes of Health compared how Americans report increasing use of tools to access patient data. In HINTS short 52 – focused on communication, access and use of patient portals – NIH said that while there are “significant disparities in the use of patient portals with underserved populations,” 2019 and 2020 data showed that 45% of Americans who had used patient portals in the past twelve had a health visit for months reported having access to a patient portal compared to 31.4% in 2018 and 25.6% in 2014.
Further analysis by ONC found that more than half of those offered online access to their medical records reported accessing them at least three times last year, while nearly one in three accessed them six or more times had access to.
“In 2022, only 1 in 5 individuals reported that they had not accessed their online health records in the past year, a decline of more than 50 percent since 2017,” Strawley and Richwine wrote.
They noted that HINTS data showed that the most common drivers behind accessing online medical records last year were viewing test results and clinical notes, and that the more patients tried to access their patient data, the more likely they were that they would use an app.
“Individuals’ use of apps to access their online health records increased significantly between 2020 and 2022, while only web-based access to portals decreased,” Strawley and Richwine said.
ONC published the Cures Act Final Rule to broaden patient and healthcare provider access to health-related data, specifically through the adoption of secure standardized APIs by healthcare IT developers. Rolled out to healthcare providers earlier this year, the API requirements allow patients to access their electronic health information electronically using apps.
HINTS is a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults from the civilian, non-institutionalized population that tracks changes in the health communications and information technology landscape, according to NIH.
THE BIG TREND
“Portal use has been associated with improvements in health-related outcomes, including medication adherence, understanding of medical conditions, disease self-management, and shared decision-making,” the NIH noted in its July HINTS briefing.
While patients use portals to download their medical records, and tech giants like Apple have developed patient record apps for them, they also want access to actionable health data.
The Sequoia Project’s Consumer Voices Workgroup said in July that its consumer research has found that patients are not always able to understand the medical records they have access to.
“People want results and reports in plain language so they can be more involved in managing their health,” Sequoia Project said in a statement.
“Until reports are written for patient consumption, the full benefits of patients’ access to their health records will not be achieved.”
ON THE RECORD
“Individuals who used an app to access their online medical records were more likely to access them,” ONC said.
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.