In Anticipation of Sharing Pediatric Inpatient Notes: Focus Group Study With Stakeholders
- PMID: 35635743
- PMCID: PMC9153906
- DOI: 10.2196/37759
In Anticipation of Sharing Pediatric Inpatient Notes: Focus Group Study With Stakeholders
Abstract
Background: Patient portals are a health information technology that allows patients and their proxies, such as caregivers and family members, to access designated portions of their electronic health record using mobile devices and web browsers. The Open Notes initiative in the United States, which became federal law in April 2021, has redrawn and expanded the boundaries of medical records. Only a few studies have focused on sharing notes with parents or caregivers of pediatric patients.
Objective: This study aimed to investigate the anticipated impact of increasing the flow of electronic health record information, specifically physicians' daily inpatient progress notes, via a patient portal to parents during their child's acute hospital stay-an understudied population and an understudied setting.
Methods: A total of 5 in-person focus groups were conducted with 34 stakeholders most likely impacted by sharing of physicians' inpatient notes with parents of hospitalized children: hospital administrators, hospitalist physicians, interns and resident physicians, nurses, and the parents themselves.
Results: Distinct themes identified as benefits of pediatric inpatient Open Notes for parents emerged from all the 5 focus groups. These themes were communication, recapitulation and reinforcement, education, stress reduction, quality control, and improving family-provider relationships. Challenges identified included burden on provider, medical jargon, communication, sensitive content, and decreasing trust.
Conclusions: Providing patients and, in the case of pediatrics, caregivers with access to medical records via patient portals increases the flow of information and, in turn, their ability to participate in the discourse of their care. Parents in this study demonstrated not only that they act as monitors and guardians of their children's health but also that they are observers of the clinical processes taking place in the hospital and at their child's bedside. This includes the clinical documentation process, from the creation of notes to the reading and sharing of the notes. Parents acknowledge not only the importance of notes in the clinicians' workflow but also their collaboration with providers as part of the health care team.
Keywords: caregivers; electronic health records; focus group; hospitals; information sharing; inpatient care; medical informatics; patient portals; pediatrics.
©Catherine Arnott Smith, Michelle M Kelly. Originally published in Journal of Participatory Medicine (https://jopm.jmir.org), 30.05.2022.
Conflict of interest statement
Conflicts of Interest: None declared.
Similar articles
-
Physicians' Perspectives on Inpatient Portals: Systematic Review.Interact J Med Res. 2022 Nov 15;11(2):e39542. doi: 10.2196/39542. Interact J Med Res. 2022. PMID: 36378521 Free PMC article. Review.
-
Sharing Clinical Notes and Electronic Health Records With People Affected by Mental Health Conditions: Scoping Review.JMIR Ment Health. 2021 Dec 14;8(12):e34170. doi: 10.2196/34170. JMIR Ment Health. 2021. PMID: 34904956 Free PMC article. Review.
-
BedsideNotes: Sharing Physicians' Notes With Parents During Hospitalization.Hosp Pediatr. 2021 May;11(5):503-508. doi: 10.1542/hpeds.2020-005447. Epub 2021 Apr 1. Hosp Pediatr. 2021. PMID: 33795371 Free PMC article.
-
Stakeholder Perspectives in Anticipation of Sharing Physicians' Notes With Parents of Hospitalized Children.Acad Pediatr. 2021 Mar;21(2):259-264. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2020.11.018. Epub 2020 Nov 28. Acad Pediatr. 2021. PMID: 33259951 Free PMC article.
-
Parent Perceptions of Real-time Access to Their Hospitalized Child's Medical Records Using an Inpatient Portal: A Qualitative Study.Hosp Pediatr. 2019 Apr;9(4):273-280. doi: 10.1542/hpeds.2018-0166. Hosp Pediatr. 2019. PMID: 30894398 Free PMC article.
References
-
- Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America . Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Washington, DC, USA: National Academies Press (US); 2001. - PubMed
-
- What is a patient portal? HealthIT. [2022-04-23]. https://www.healthit.gov/faq/what-patient-portal .
-
- Skog DA, Wimelius H, Sandberg J. Digital disruption. Bus Inf Syst Eng. 2018 Jul 16;60(5):431–7. doi: 10.1007/s12599-018-0550-4. - DOI
Grants and funding
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Miscellaneous