Primary care staff’s views and experience of patients’ online access to their electronic health record: a qualitative exploration

The British journal of general practice: the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners

article

Gail Davidge¹  Lindsey Brown¹  Moira Lyons¹  Charlotte Blease²  David French³  Tjeerd van Staa⁴  Brian McMillan¹ 

[1] Centre for Primary Care and Health Services Research, University of Manchester;Division of General Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School;Manchester Centre of Health Psychology, University of Manchester;Division of Informatics, Imaging & Data Sciences, University of Manchester

关键词: digital health;    electronic health records;    primary health care;    qualitative research;    PAEHR;    patient records access;   

DOI  :  10.3399/BJGP.2022.0436

学科分类：卫生学

来源: Royal College of General Practitioners

【 摘 要 】

Background NHS England have announced plans to enable all adult patients to have full prospective access to their primary care record by default. Despite this, little is known about the views and experiences of primary care staff regarding patients’ online records access (ORA).Aim To examine the views and experiences of primary care staff regarding patients having online access to their primary care health record, and how this service could be supported and improved.Design and setting A qualitative study of a purposive sample of 30 primary care staff in England.Method Online semi-structured interviews with primary care staff were conducted between December 2021 and March 2022. Verbatim transcripts were analysed inductively using thematic analysis.Results Most staff agreed with the principle of patient access to online health records but had mixed feelings regarding the potential benefits and drawbacks of applying this in practice. Staff identified opportunities for improving patient engagement, health literacy, and efficiencies in some administrative workloads, as well as concerns about maintaining the clinical integrity of patient records and ensuring that staff and patient safety and wellbeing are protected.Conclusion Participants acknowledged that ORA may transform the purpose and function of the record and that ORA has potential to instigate a significant cultural shift in primary care, changing how staff work and relate to patients. This underlines the need for additional staff training and support to expand capability and capacity to adapt practice and enhance patient engagement with, and understanding of, their health records.

【 授权许可】

Free