Understanding Patient Requests for Access to Hospital Health Records Globally

AHIMA September 7, 2021
Kay Nicol, BBus, MBA, BSc; Kerryn Butler-Henderson, BSc, MBA, MPH, PhD, FAIDH, CHIA; Joan Carlini, BBus, MMark, PhD; and Kim Lehman, BA, BLitt, PhD

In a patient-centric environment, providing individuals with access to their clinical information enables improved knowledge, increased satisfaction, and greater influence over personal health outcomes.¹ Under the provisions of relevant legislation relating to the release of health information, individuals are entitled to access health records created as evidence of care and treatment received.^2-11 Requests for the release of information of health records have traditionally been a function of a hospital’s health information management (HIM) department or the administrative staff in primary healthcare.¹² The process remains labor intensive, particularly where health records are stored in hybrid systems (paper and electronic).¹³

Many countries, including the United States, allow direct access through some type of portal—an online system allowing patient (and their caregivers with...

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