Feedback from patients starts...

Last week marked another milestone in the experience of Records Access at my surgery, direct feedback from a couple of my patients.

While I have had copies of my initial survey returned, this is the first time I have had the chance to learn directly who is using the facility, and a bit about their experience.

One patient had clearly been having problems accessing the record, and then later been blocked altogether with password problems requiring a re-set. While this is only a technical issue, it is perhaps a warning that this may become a frequent event. For patients who only look at part of the records occasionally, or who rarely need to book appointments or request medication, forgotten passwords will become a barrier to use. For the practice we are very reluctant to take on additional work with re-setting, particularly when there appear to be efficient and safe mechanisms deployed in the commercial world. Clearly an area where we need to do better to make access smoother.

A second patient had far more success, and had been looking through the record with interest. The questions brought about the presentation of the record from a patient perspective has alerted me to some of the anomalies that I take for granted. This includes the absence of values when they are low or high and 'out of the laboratory range', and instead they arrive from the laboratory as text. Then they no longer appear as a 'value' - which can be very confusing for a patient who knows they had a test on a specific date, but cannot see a result! Also very useful was the observation that a previous significant diagnosis was not listed in the significant problems section of the record. Checking back revealed it was noted in the past record, but not correctly flagged as a 'significant event' due to subsequent improvements and standardisation of our 'summarisation' arrangements. This is now corrected, and gives me an immediate example of where a record summary, jointly managed by patient and clinician, is more accurate and relevant for future care.

So the message of the week - the GP record summary holds important and useful information to support the safe care of the patient, but its value and accuracy is increased when jointly managed by the GP & patient in partnership.

Peter S.