Survey: Patients Want More Open Medical Records

A striking majority of patients would like to share information in their electronic records and see what their physicians are saying about them, according to a pair of studies published in the Dec. 20 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The first survey, "Patient Interest in Sharing Personal Health Record Information," found that 79 percent of the 18,000 users of My HealtheVet--the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) electronic personal health record (PHR) system--would like to share the information in their personal health record with someone outside of the VA system.

Of those willing to provide access to others, 62 percent wanted to grant access to their spouse or partner, 23 percent to one of their children, 15 percent to another family member and 7 percent to an unrelated caregiver. Of those who indicated that they were eager to share their records with a family member other than a spouse or partner, 47 percent reported that the family member didn't live with the respondent, and 17 percent were long-distance family members...