Sharing Clinical Notes with Hospitalized Patients via an Acute Care Portal

Though several institutions offer hospitalized patients access to their medical records through acute care patient portals, no studies have assessed the potential impact of patients' access to physicians' notes through these systems. We employed a mixed-methods approach, including patient surveys, system usage log analysis, and qualitative interviews, to describe patients' perspectives on receiving their clinical notes and usage of the clinical notes feature in an acute care patient portal. Patients visited the clinical notes feature more frequently and for longer durations than any other feature. In qualitative interviews, patients reported improved access to information, better insight into their conditions, decreased anxiety, increased appreciation for clinicians, improvements in health behaviors, and more engagement in care. Our results suggest that sharing notes with hospitalized patients is feasible and beneficial, although further studies should investigate the magnitude of benefit and explore the unintended negative consequences associated with increased transparency of clinical information.