Is anyone ready for online access to patient data?

Patient access to medical records set to challenge GPs and patients alike

With the government pushing family doctors to enable their patients to access medical records online, healthcare watchers are warning that both GPs and patients may be unprepared for the consequences.

The government confirmed this week it is to ask primary care trusts (PCTs) to collect information on the number of GP practices that allow patients to access their medical records online.

PCT's will use a 12-month period between March 2011 and March 2012 to assess which GPs have the capability to allow patients to access their medical records online and which ones actually offer that service.

But for such a scheme to work, both patient and doctor need to have a firm grasp of what benefits it will bring, said Jon Lindberg, healthcare programme manager at IT trade group Intellect.

Potentially, patient access can be the spur to a more efficient method of healthcare, where people play a more active role in managing their health.

"Self-care must become a greater part of how the English population look at healthcare, [so] that they can be better off, spend less time being stressed, and ultimately be healthier and stay out of hospitals," he told Computing.

But for that to happen requires a cultural change - and one that can't be simply engendered by introducing online access to medical data, said Lindberg.

"We must overcome the traditional view that patients go and see a doctor or nurse to be told what their ailment is and what he or she needs to do next," he said. "This ingrained practice does not lend itself to a sudden, automatic empowerment of patients through access of information online."

Others report greater misgivings over the government's so-called information revolution in healthcare. Earlier this month, the British Medical Association's Working Party on IT argued that delivering the information revolution in healthcare while operating within stringent financial constraints would be "extremely challenging".

"While the principle of patients controlling aspects of their records is a good one, there must be safeguards reducing the risks involved in sharing such sensitive data," said Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a GP and member of the BMA's Working Party on IT.

There have to be mechanisms to ensure clinicians play an active role in helping patients understand the information in their records, he argued.

"The experience of doctors is often that when patients are presented with data to inform their choices, they still value the views of the professionals caring for them," Nagpaul added.