Patients’ Access to Electronic Health Record

Summary

The number of patients requesting access to their health journal is increasing. Most patients would like to have electronic access to their health data as they intend to share it with another health provider, family members or a lawyer. Today, this is not possible in Norway. The Health Enterprise is obliged to handle the patient information in accordance with the regulations in the field.

The project will give patients access to their journal. In 2013, a proof-of-concept (POC) will be developed. The system shall be designed in a manner compatible with the national health portal. The lead project partner is the University Hospital of North Norway (UNN) by the Norwegian Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine (NST) in collaboration with DIPS ASA, Health North ICT (Helse Nord IKT) and the Norwegian Directorate of Health.

Background

According to the Health Personnel Act, section 41 ‘Duty to provide patient access to records’, 1 paragraph, ‘the health care provider shall provide access to the patient records to anyone entitled there to pursuant to the provisions of the Patients Rights’ Act section 5-1’. The Health Enterprise is obliged to handle the patient information in accordance with the regulations in the field. Today, the request is handled by the hospital's EPR archive by a signed paper-based letter. Often, the EPR archive needs to contact the requester to explore which elements of the EPR the patient really needs. Copies and prints of the journal is sent to by postal mail to the adress of the requester, sometimes on a CD. A study of the EPR requests from November 2011 through April 2012, found that most people requesting their journal, would like to have a digitalized version. The UNN CEO, Tor Ingebrigtsen, has requested this service in place for the patients at UNN by the end of the year. The board of Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory (TTL) decided 1 March 2012 to follow-up the study with a project that can be scaled up to national service. In 2012, this project explored various technical, legal and organizational aspects of a service under the Norwegian Directorate of Health’s portal.

Aim

The aim of the project is to give patients electronic access to their health record. In phase 1, the service will be provided to patients at UNN via DIPS EPJ/PAS. The service will be scalable nationwide via the health portal. The modes of secure communication shall be easy available for most people living in Norway.

Description

This proof-of-concept project is focusing on knowledge production. The overall aim is to give recommendations on how patients and citizens can receive secure access to their health record via the national health portal. During the first three months detailed plans on the technical requirements will be developed. The system architecture will be based on use-case scenarios, national standards on message exchange. When this is in place, a demonstrator for journal access, user interface and testing environment will be developed. Testing of the demonstrator will commence in project month 8. Results from this final test will be the basis for the recommendations and project report. If the demonstrator is succesful, these recommendations will be used for developing a commercial service for patients' electronic access to their journal.

Partners

NST, DIPS, Health North ICT and the Norwegian Directorate of Health and Norwegian Health Net.

Financing

The board of TTL has approved project activities of NOK 950,000 for 2012 with partners’ internal contribution of 60%. For 2013, the board has approved a project plan with a total budget of NOK 2,077,00.