Only about one in 10 discharged hospital patients given access to their electronic medical records go online to take a look, a U.S. study suggests, writes Reuters.
For the study published in the November edition of Health Affairs, researchers examined data collected from 2,410 hospitals nationwide between 2014 and 2016. Overall, hospitals gave 95% of discharged patients access to view, download and transmit their electronic health information, the analysis found.
But only about 10% of patients with access to their electronic medical records actually accessed their data. Compared to patients at for-profit hospitals, those treated elsewhere were less likely to have access to their records but more likely to take advantage of access when it was available. People treated at major teaching hospitals were more likely to access records and the probability that they would do so increased over time, the study also found.
Read more: