Should EMRs Help Patients Retrieve Medical Records?

As often as not, patients who need to retrieve paper medical records from hospitals go through a painful process, one which is not much easier than it was before EMRs were introduced in hospitals.

I found this out myself recently when I attempted to retrieve a medical record for one of my children from a large hospital in my metro area.  I started by reaching out to the health information management department — where it took three separate calls before I connected with a staff member.  Then I was informed that the despite the paper-free hospital environment, I would have to wait two weeks before I could lay hands on the medical record, as the staff was swamped.

This would have struck me as comical if it wasn’t such an unfortunate situation. Without HIEs in place universally across the hospital world, wouldn’t it make sense if the EMR helped produce the paper copies of records needed everywhere in a universal fashion?

Yes, I realize that EMRs are optimized for care during the hospital visit, and such is necessary to get the job done.  That being said, I could easily see using some of the technology hospitals already have in place to make EMR records retrievable by caregivers and patients.

After all, at least some hospitals already have kiosks in place that allow patients to pay bills. Couldn’t a modification of such kiosk allow patients to pay for their records fees, order the records for a given patient, sign electronically to give permission for such a printout and get the records into the mail on the back end — if not straight into their hands?

Sure, I know HIPAA issues arise when you’re trying to automate the dispensing of private health information, but at least until HIEs are everywhere, it’s a problem that needs to be handled.  After all, the reality is that patients need to carry print records all over the place to get decent care. What’s the point of urging patients to engage with their medical records data if simply retrieving hard copies of them is such an awkward chore?

I know there was some debate about this in meaningful use. Hopefully once the future stages of meaningful use are in place, getting your records from the EHR will be a much faster process than it is today.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

4 Comments

  • Anne, good coverage of a very important topic. I think we had all hoped technology would cure all ills. Truth is, patient portals usually only contain certain information and values. Rarely do portals encompass the entire medical record. Hence the release of information (ROI) process you describe above.

    A patient’s request for a complete record could be managed via a patient portal, but would require intervention on an individual’s part. I speak nationally on this topic and have met with many organizations providing patient portals. Lesson learned so far: formal requests for medical records (by the patient) such as yours, have not yet decreased. I guess time and technology will tell.

    Rita Bowen, MA, RHIA, CHPS, SSGB
    Sr. VP of HIM and Privacy Officer
    HealthPort

  • It would be nice to see patients offered the chance to sign up to the EHR’s portal even before they are discharged – in fact, to even have some in hospital access from bedside terminals that could also serve as patient TV’s, a tool to communicate with the staff, order meals, etc.

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