Electronic health records: how transparent should they be?

• Position: EHR

How much access should patients have to their electronic health records? According to an Accenture study completed in December 2012, most (49%) physicians favor transparency, but only 21% allow online access.

"Many physicians believe that patients should take an active role in managing their own health information, because it fosters personal responsibility and ownership and enables both the patient and doctor to track progress outside scheduled appointments," said Mark Knickrehm, global managing director of Accenture Health. "Several U.S, health systems have proven that the benefits outweigh the risks in allowing patients open access to their health records."

The Accenture study surveyed 3,700 physicians in the United States, England, Spain, France, Germany, and Singapore. U.S. doctors were marginally more open to allowing patients to update their records online. There was a clear consensus among the respondents that, generally, patients should be allowed to update all or some of their information, from demographic details to lab test results. More than half of the responding physicians favored providing update privileges.

Figure 2: U.S. doctors were the most open toward patients updating the information in...