Patients Now See Their Records, But Can They Understand Them?
A national rule on medical information-sharing has come into effect before providers and patients are ready to communicate clearly.
It’s important to make sure that patients can comprehend.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergI am a primary care pediatrician who often hears from friends or relatives when they get bad or confusing medical news. Recently, a call came late on a Friday from someone who had just checked a test result in her MyChart account, a widely used electronic patient portal, and learned she had cancer. The weekend was starting, she wouldn’t be able to discuss the news with her doctor until Monday, and she spent the weekend reading and rereading her report and anxiously searching the internet for information.
Experiences like this have become common since April, when a provision requiring the release of patient medical information was put into full effect as part of the 21st Century Cures Act. This legislation, originally from 2016, was a bipartisan effort to assure that doctors and hospitals would share with patients (at no cost) several types of medical records and test results. While this may sound like a small step toward openness, it actually represents a sea change in the way doctors and patients communicate.