Design of a Patient-Accessible Electronic Health Record System in Mental Health

Patient accessible Electronic Health Records (PAEHRs) are increasingly implemented internationally. However, studies carried out in the mental health care setting report several practical and ethical challenges when introducing PAEHRs. In this paper we aim to explore the requirements of a PAEHR system in mental health. As part of a participatory design process, we collected qualitative data from service users and staff in a rural mental health day clinic setting, which can be summarized in the following themes: I) Function and way of the documentation; II) Impact on Treatment; III) Concerns about PAEHRs; IV) time of access to PAEHRs; V) Different views on what to share; VI) Access, Data Privacy and Special Features. Our study uncovered the complexity and special requirements and barriers to the design of PAEHR in mental health. While we are in an early stage of our study, we will continue this iterative process and adapt the PAEHR system to the specific needs of the users and domains.