Patient Access to Health Information

Patient satisfaction suffers under poor hospital admission & discharge

March 27, 2024 - Healthcare organizations working on improving the hospital patient experience need to focus on the admission and discharge process, with new J.D. Power survey data showing that patients are frustrated by a lack of information and long wait times. The data, based on surveying of just under 3,000 adult patients experiencing an overnight hospital stay...


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Using the PEMAT to assess patient education materials

by Sara Heath

As the push for greater patient health literacy gets stronger, the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) could be helpful to healthcare providers. Increasingly, healthcare industry experts are touting the role that patient...

Using gen AI to translate medical jargon in discharge notes

by Sara Heath

Using too much medical jargon in discharge notes may not be conducive to patient engagement, but researchers from NYU Langone are exploring how generative AI can fix that problem. In a new study...

OpenNotes Sets Sights on AI in Healthcare with New OpenNotes Lab

by Sara Heath

OpenNotes, the patient advocacy group that’s historically led the charge for better patient data access, is dipping its toes in the AI waters with OpenNotes Labs, an initiative to understand how...

Patient Portals & Open Notes Increase Referral Access by Up to 40%

by Sara Heath

Does patient portal access make a difference in referral access after a primary care appointment? According to one new study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), it...

YouTube Unveils Public Health & First Aid Education Videos

by Sara Heath

YouTube wants to help viewers learn first aid with a new slate of videos the social media and online video platform has posted to promote public health and first aid education. The move comes as a...

Breaking Down Patient Requests for EHR, Medical Record Corrections

by Sara Heath

As healthcare organizations continue to strive for better patient safety, they will have to ensure an adequate process for fulfilling patient requests for EHR and medical record corrections. EHR and medical record corrections are exactly...

‘Every Patient, Every Time’: Boosting Techquity in Patient Portal Use

by Sara Heath

For many healthcare organizations, the patient portal has become the place where patients access the healthcare system and keep coming back. It’s a wraparound digital experience that meets the moment on healthcare consumerism, but if...

How to Achieve Patient Portal ‘Techquity’ & Digital Health Equity

by Sara Heath

A group of health IT academics is laying out the argument for closing the digital divide, saying that achieving what they termed as “techquity” in patient portal adoption is actually...

Digital Patient Experience, Engagement Split by Patient Demographics

by Sara Heath

The digital patient experience is becoming more important than ever, with new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures showing that more than half of patients use the internet to find...

Patient Data Access, Mobile Patient Portals Reach Unprecedented Use

by Sara Heath

Patient data access is at an all-time high, with new data from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT showing three in five patients being offered and accessing their digital health...

Providence Approaches Healthcare Digital Innovation With Provider Expertise

by Sara Heath

Providence health system knows something about digital tools in the healthcare consumer world, with its latest incubated technology, Praia Health, being proof of the power of stakeholder input and design. As a health system serving...

Patients Want Doc Counsel Under Cures Act Patient Data Access Rules

by Sara Heath

New data in the journal Radiation Oncology is providing more insights into how the 21st Century Cures Act’s provision mandating immediate patient data access and access to lab results impacts...

Did the 21st Century Cures Act Patient Data Access Rules Hurt Experience?

by Sara Heath

The information blocking rule under the 21st Century Cures Act, which eased patient data access, may have had the unintended consequence of disrupting the patient experience, with a new study in JAMA...

Is The American Public Swayed by Medical Misinformation?

by Sara Heath

A whopping four in 10 Americans has heard medical misinformation and false claims about COVID-19, reproductive health, and gun violence, illustrating a difficult landscape for medical and public health...

OpenNotes Launches Resources to Help Patients Use Clinician Notes

by Sara Heath

Patient advocacy group OpenNotes wants to make it easier for patients to take advantage of open clinical notes through the launch of its online resource, How To Use Open Notes. Open notes is the...

YouTube Revamps Medical Misinformation Guidelines for Video Content

by Sara Heath

YouTube is continuing its efforts to combat online medical misinformation by further clarifying how it will assess online video content. The Google-owned social media platform said it will zero in on...

Key Considerations for Patient Data Access, Patient Engagement

by Sara Heath

Most experts agree that patient data access is crucial for strong patient engagement. Although most patient engagement strategies also incorporate principles of patient-centered care, patient education, and social determinants of health,...

Parental Patient Portal Use Rate in Pediatrics Lower than 50%

by Sara Heath

Only around 43 percent of parents or guardians use the patient portal to manage their child’s health, representing a pretty serious lapse in patient engagement, according to a new survey from the...

Why Patient Portal Proxy Accounts Are Key for Dementia Patients 

by Sara Heath

It could be useful for providers treating patients with dementia to encourage their care partners to create their own patient portal proxy accounts, according to a JAMA Internal Medicine research note...