Health Data Exchange Falling Short of Patient Expectations

Ninety-seven percent of patients say health data exchange between provider is key to quality healthcare.

Patients think health data access between multiple disparate providers is critical to quality healthcare, according to a recent survey, but that reality is not yet realized. The survey, conducted by Humana subsidiary Transcend Insights, found that 97 percent of patients want for healthcare organizations of any location or specialty to have access to their full patient records. According to 87 percent of the survey’s nearly 2,600 respondents, this access is especially important for primary care providers. 

Ninety-three percent of patients said that provider data access was paramount to personalized care, and 92 percent said patient data access was also important to personalized care. In addition to doctor-to-doctor HIE, patients also value providers being able to access their own patient-generated health data. Sixty-four percent of respondents reported using mHealth and other health IT to support their self-management efforts, and 71 percent considered the ability of providers to access the data gleaned from those tools to be vital.

According to the survey, patients value extensive health data access as a means of ensuring better quality care. Thirty-eight percent of patient respondents had full faith in providers who have full access to patient medical records; only 27 percent of patients said the same about providers who do not have full access to patient medical records. According to survey administrators, healthcare organizations are falling short of patient expectations. Although 71 percent of patients reported that they think their providers can already seamlessly access all of their health data, survey administrators say that may be because patients are giving their providers “the benefit of the doubt”...