Apparently less than a third of U.S. doctors surveyed want their patients to have total access to their health records.
 
Accenture surveyed 3,700 physicians from Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Singapore, Spain and the United States on “adoption, utilization and attitudes toward healthcare IT.”
 
Most of the MDs, in the U.S. and around the world, agreed that EHR was a good thing overall for patient care. 84% of respondents said “they are somewhat or strongly committed to promoting electronic records in their clinical practice,” per the report.
 
But the U.S. doctors were less committed to sharing that data. Only 31% said patients should have “full access” to their health records; 65% felt their access should be “limited.” 4% thought patients should have no access at all.
 
Putting things into the record is a different story, though. Most U.S. physicians would let patients do at least some clinical updating of their record. 95% would let them update some or all demographic information; 81% would even let them update their symptoms. The physicians were less enthusiastic about taking lab reports from patients, though, with just 53% agreeing.
 
Accenture’s managing director for North American Health, Kaveh Safavi, told Information Week the survey shows “we're getting close to the point where half of the doctors are comfortable with patient-entered data.” Perhaps, but they’re apparently less comfortable with patient-scrutinized data.