Cancer Patients' Sharing of Electronic Health Records with Informal Caregivers

Patients' online record access (ORA) enables patients with complex diagnoses like cancer to involve their informal caregivers in care management by sharing health information, either through proxy access functionality or informally. The extent to which cancer patients use electronic health records (EHRs) for information sharing is unknown. Using the NORDeHEALTH 2022 Patient Survey, we compared cancer and other patients' reasons for using the EHR in Sweden. We found that although the majority of respondents did not access their records with the purpose of sharing with family or friends, cancer patients were more likely to state this as a reason than other patients, or those with no recent treatment experience. This indicates an increased need for proxy access functionality in patient portals among cancer patients.