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Are You In or Are You Out? Provider Note Sharing in Pediatrics
Mario Bialostozky1,2, Jeannie S Huang2,3, Cynthia L Kuelbs2,4
1Department of Emergency Medicine, Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, San Diego, California, United States.
Insights
Defaulting to sharing provider notes with parents and teens in pediatric care significantly increased patient access to health information. This opt-out system proved highly effective without negative consequences, enhancing transparency in healthcare.
Area of Science:
- Health Informatics
- Patient Engagement
- Pediatric Healthcare
Background:
- The OpenNotes initiative promotes healthcare transparency through patient access to provider notes.
- Limited research exists on provider note sharing in pediatric populations and the impact of default settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe the implementation of a default note-sharing system in pediatric specialty practices.
- To evaluate the impact of default versus voluntary note sharing on patient access to medical information.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective analysis of shareable medical provider notes in pediatric subspecialty clinics (April 2017-March 2019).
- Comparison of note sharing rates before and after implementing a system default for note release.
Main Results:
- Before default sharing (opt-in), only 0.1% of shareable notes were accessed by patients.
- After implementing default sharing (opt-out), 85% of shareable notes were accessed by patients and families.
Conclusions:
- An opt-out system for provider note sharing in pediatric settings dramatically increases patient access to their health information.
- Default note release to parent proxies and adolescents is achievable and beneficial, enhancing transparency without adverse effects.
Background:
The OpenNotes initiative launched an international movement aimed at making health care more transparent by improving communication with, and access to, information for patients through provider note sharing. Little has been written either on provider note sharing in pediatric and adolescent populations or on the impact of system default settings versus voluntary provider note sharing.
Objective:
We describe our journey as a pediatric integrated delivery network to default share notes in ambulatory specialty practices not only with parent proxies but also with teens and discuss the methods that led to a successful implementation.
Methods:
Retrospective analysis of every ambulatory shareable medical provider note written in pediatric subspecialty clinics within an integrated pediatric delivery network from April 2017 through March 2019.
Results:
From April 2017 to February 2018, a total of 221,655 notes were shareable based on organizational policies, yet only 224 (0.1%) were actually shared with patients and families. After implementing a system of default release of notes from March 2018 to January 2019, a total of 224,960 notes were shareable, of which 191,379 (85%) were shared.
Conclusion:
Requiring providers to take an action to share notes (opt-in) results in few notes being shared while requiring providers to take an action to not share notes (opt-out) results in high levels of note sharing. We demonstrate that default release of notes in pediatric organizations to both proxies and teens is not only achievable but also likely to lead to increased provider note sharing with patients without obvious negative impact on providers or the organization.
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