Have you ever been curious about what your doctor is writing in your chart? Future practices may allow you to not only a get closer look, but also to suggest changes and additions to your own medical information.
Government incentives for healthcare providers are coaxing more hospitals into the electronic age. Today more than half of doctors are using electronic medical records, up from just 17 percent in 2008, according to The Wall Street Journal. This increase in the use of new technology is fostering more innovative solutions to fixing inaccuracies in patients’ medical histories. A new “medication feedback initiative” that gives patients secure access to their online medical records may help reduce errors.
Medication errors are common in patient medical records. Other recording errors also occur such as missing lab results, inaccuracies in diagnoses, wrong information regarding medication allergies, and missing information and updates from other health care providers. This patient access to electronic medical records is being tested by several large medical providers including the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic , the Veterans Health Administration , Geisinger Health Systems and Kaiser Permanente.
Geisinger Health systems, in central Pennsylvania, recently found that in nearly 90 percent of cases patients who saw their medical records requested changes that included changes to doses and frequency of medications. Geisinger is currently adopting more programs including one called “open notes” that will allow patients to also view their doctors’ notes and write their own comments back to the physicians.