Patients forget between 40 percent and 80 percent of what a provider tells them during an appointment, leading to a broken, inefficient healthcare system, according to MedPage Today.
OpenNotes may serve as a viable solution to the communication issue. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association published a study analyzing the effect email reminders have on whether patients accessed their physician's notes via OpenNotes.
In the study, researchers analyzed 14,000 OpenNotes trial participants for two years at Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa.
Here are five highlights:
1. At Beth Israel Deaconess, 53.7 percent of patient checked their physician's notes within 30 days of the notes becoming available to them, compared to 60.9 percent of patients at Geisinger. These figures stayed the same throughout the first year.
2. Patients at Beth Israel viewed their notes with the same frequency during the second year. During the final three months of the study, researchers noted a slight decline.
3. After the reminders stopped, 13.2 percent of Geisinger patients stopped viewing their notes, which the authors noted was "the biggest finding."
4. The findings indicated among the Beth Israel Deaconess patients, minority patients were less likely to view notes compared to white patients.
5. Based on the study, various institutions are implementing OurNotes, an OpenNotes' extension. The tool allows patients to be "co-authors" of the notes, therefore promoting patient engagement.
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