BedsideNotes: Sharing Physicians' Notes With Parents During Hospitalization.

Area of Science:

• Pediatric hospital medicine
• Patient engagement
• Health informatics

Background:

• Physicians increasingly share outpatient (ambulatory) visit notes with patients.
• Evidence suggests this improves patient experience without increasing physician burden.
• The impact of sharing inpatient notes with parents of hospitalized children is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate parent and physician perceptions of sharing inpatient pediatric medical record notes with parents during hospitalization.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study involving parents of children under 12 admitted to a tertiary children's hospital.
• Parents were offered real-time access to admission and progress notes via a bedside portal (MyChart Bedside).
• Perceptions were assessed using OpenNotes survey items upon discharge for parents and physicians (attendings and interns).

Main Results:

• 25 parent-physician dyads participated.
• Parents found notes useful for care plans (100%), preparing for rounds (96%), and feeling in control (91%).
• No parents reported confusion, despite physician concerns (34%); physician-reported increased workload was noted by some (28%).
• Parent satisfaction was high (100%), followed by attendings (81%) and interns (35%).

Conclusions:

• Parents highly valued access to inpatient notes during their child's hospital stay.
• Physicians expressed some concerns regarding potential negative consequences of note sharing.
• Further comparative effectiveness research is needed to assess the impact on children, families, and healthcare staff.