Rachel - apologies for misunderstanding your comment and I agree there is no point in seeing tests results from an inpatient stay 4 years ago for a problem that has been resolved.

Your comments also hit upon a strong desire of the group this week - everyone wants to realize the dream of the proactive, prepared health system that is there for patients before they are in need. I actually misinterpreted how interested the team is in making this happen - it’s extremely high, to the point of really quite thoroughly reviewing all of the options available to make it work. They’re ready to get the data and use it to help people, now.

Group Health has been accepting structured patient entered data into its EHR since October, 2006, and as you can probably imagine, it’s a big win.

Rachel, you also make the point that in your service to a very wide diversity of people in New York State, you don’t have to just be there in the support of transparency (which I know you are); you have to go to the extra step of doing it in a health literate way.

I suppose my question at this point would be: Gail, what is the patient population that you serve in Ohio like? And are there challenges in terms of language, health literacy, or accessibility of the information that you encounter?

It’s exciting to see patient-entered data populating EHRs finally arrived. It generates a highly needed complement to our current reactive-driven healthcare delivery. Structured queries to members through portals will improve identifying factors that impact on outcomes. While providers may not be ready for patient-entered data, the literature is strong on how computerized data collection not only is perceived as having more “privacy” by patients (who knew?), but is more complete and more accurate. A quick review of comparative measurement research shows that screening both teens and adults, e.g. on substance use, sexual practice and mood disorders, yields higher rates of self-report by computer than face-to-face or paper surveys. Patient satisfaction is higher as well.

As each KP region implemented KP HealthConnect’s ambulatory application many decisions were made re what historical information should be migrated over - how many years of lab results, which lab results, as well as which health conditions come over as active and chronic vs every cold, etc.

In speaking with Ohio’s chief of Behavioral Health re: mental health and A/CD information she wanted as much information to be made available not only to other clinicians (within legal guidelines) as well as to patients. How can organizations such as Kaiser ad Group Health be successful group practices if everyone involved in the patient’s care does not have a view into their total health. Certainly the very confidential or information that could harm a patient is not made available.

While Ohio has had only a month’s experience presenting patient information to them - the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It takes the KP Promise - caring with a personal touch, we know you, convenient and easy and affordable one step closer.

One of our region’s major competitors from a care delivery perspective vs insurance) has the PHR tool. Their physicians decide what the patient will see (i.e. health conditions) and whether the patient can communicate with them online.

Well, take a look at My Health Manager - thoughts?

kp.org My Health Manager Demonstration

Question for discussion - what are some things that patients don’t want or need to see in their longitudinal record?