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Patients given immediate access to results on MHR
The DoHAC has scrapped a seven-day delay in patients viewing pathology and diagnostic imaging results, against the advice of medical colleges.
The My Health Record changes were one recommendation of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce.
Patients will be able to access certain test results immediately and without the supervision or oversight of their doctor, following a change to My Health Record (MHR) access rules.
The Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) has confirmed patients will no longer have to wait seven days before they can see their pathology and diagnostic imaging reports.
It says this change will give both patients and their doctors better access to information, empower patients to participate in their own healthcare, and reduce duplication.
While there will still be a delay in some circumstances, such as where there is evidence of clinical safety or other risks, the decision overrides serious concerns from the RACGP and other medical groups about the potential risks of making results immediately available to patients.
‘Maintaining the seven-day rule allows consumers to have access to their health information, albeit with a small delay that allows their GP or other clinician to discuss their results with them,’ the college said in a submission last year.
‘We do not consider the benefit of real-time access to results outweighs the potential harm of consumers misinterpreting results or receiving unfortunate results with no immediate clinical support.’
Dr Emil Djakic,a member of the RACGP Expert Committee – Funding and Health System Reform, told newsGP the changes mean medical information could reach patients in a way that cannot be contextualised by their GP.
‘Some patients are very literate and will be more than happy to look, some patients will not even bother looking at it, and there’ll be a few that will look at it and probably see some pretty scary outcomes,’ he said.
‘Some of the language in these reports does create quite a lot of anxiety without a level of health literacy, so that is concern.
‘It comes with a responsibility, and that is the responsibility of the patient who, on viewing that data, has to accept what they’re seeing is something they’re reading without any assistance or interpretation.’
The changes were one of the recommendations of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce, which also called for public and private pathology and diagnostic imaging providers to share their reports to MHR by default.
However, Dr Djakic said the lack of a seven-day access delay means some patients could see their results and choose not to follow-up with their healthcare provider.
‘They will choose to interpret it themselves because it avoids a visit to the doctor, or a phone call, or a consult – there are all sorts of reasons that the consumer might choose to say, “that’s adequate for me”,’ he said.
‘We need to be making sure it’s somehow reflected in My Health Record that this consumer has viewed the data and if they don’t proceed with engaging with the appropriate clinician, to help steer them through that data.’
Currently, 99% of GPs are registered and using MHR, with the service seeing a 24% increase in people using it to view their pathology reports in the past 13 months.
The volume of pathology and diagnostic imaging reports uploaded is also in the rise, with both up around one third in just one year.
As the popularity of MHR continues to grow and as patients demand more digitised and modernised access to their healthcare records, Dr Djakic said GPs must adapt.
‘In health system reform, we’re clearly keen to see data move more easily and make the patient the centre of their healthcare, and this is a step to that,’ he said.
‘We’re seeing these sorts of adaptions every day, and our industry is in the midst of seeing what this means, how it works, and how we continue to serve the patient with the best possible care with this information.
‘We’re in this reform space where we’re looking at how do we how to manage this in a way that meets the patient’s needs as safely, and with as much care and quality as required.’
To accommodate the access changes, the Australian Digital Health Agency will soon begin helping healthcare providers to meet the new requirements.
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