Study: At-Risk Teenagers Interested in Online Health Record Access

At-risk teenagers are very interested in accessing their health records  online and are open to sharing their records with physicians, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, FierceHealthIT reports (Hall, FierceHealthIT,  10/22).

Study Details, Findings

For the study, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and  the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center conducted in-person interviews with 79  incarcerated teenagers who received treatment at the medical center.

The study found that at-risk teenagers had similar rates of Internet use as  the general adolescent population, with 87% reporting that they used the  Internet at least once per week when they were not in juvenile detention  (Digitale, Stanford  release, 10/21).

In addition, 90% of the at-risk teenagers said they would be interested in  having online access to their health records.

A significant majority of the teenagers said they would be willing to share  their electronic health records with physicians, but only half said they would  be willing to share their health records with their parents.

Implications

Arash Anoshiravani, lead author of the study, noted that such teenagers  generally are not included in discussions about how to better engage patients in  their health (FierceHealthIT, 10/22).

Anoshiravani — an adolescent medicine specialist at Lucile Packard  Children’s Hospital, a clinical assistant professor of adolescent medicine at  Stanford and the medical director of the Santa Clara County Juvenile Custody  Institutions — said, “I didn’t expect this level of interest because [such  teenagers] don’t typically think of health as something that’s part of their  daily lives.”

However, the researchers noted that at-risk teenagers are uniquely positioned  to benefit from online health records because they generally have worse health  than other adolescents and often do not have family members tracking the health  care they receive.

According to researchers, the biggest challenge will be addressing the issue  of health information sharing.  The at-risk teenagers expressed reluctance  to share their health information with their parents, but minors’ parents are  permitted to view certain parts of their health records. However, minors must  provide consent for other health information to be shared with their parents.

Anoshiravani said the next step is to implement and evaluate online health  records for at-risk teenagers (Stanford release, 10/22).

Source: iHealthBeat

Comments are closed.