Patient Portals - Medical Imaging

[Allison Browning]

Hi Everyone,

Recently I had the opportunity to read an interview with our very own Alies Maybee by Health Quality Ontario (find full interview here). This was a very enlightening discussion for me as I currently lead the Patient Experience Team for a patient portal. Our portal is more niche as we allow patients to directly access their own medical imaging records (imaging + report) and gives patients the options to share their records online (email or fax), create their own printed page with a link to the records, or create a CD/USB for in person sharing.

I wanted to reach out to the network and ask for you to share your experiences with using any patient portals for medical imaging. If you have no experience with patient portals for medical imaging, perhaps you have an experience to share on having to access your records in person and requesting a CD from your IHF imaging centre or Hospital.

Any experiences you can share would be helpful for me understanding better the limits and challenges patients currently experience in accessing their medical imaging.

If you are interested in using the service yourself, you can request access to your medical imaging records here: mypockethealth.com/requestrecords. If you have used the service, and have any feedback please feel free to reach out. Our whole team reviews patient feedback every Monday afternoon, so your comments will be so helpful for us to improve the patient experience!

Warmly,
Allison

[Nancy Roper]

Hi Allison,

I have 2 experiences to share that may offer some interesting colour depending what you're trying to figure out:

(1) In 2010, I had an ultrasound to do the screening for a genetic condition in our family that needs to be tracked. The requesting doctor got the report back (not the image) and it seemed to have nothing out of the ordinary, except that there was 1 sentence that didn't make sense. At first we just figured that they typist had missed a word and maybe had a typo in 2 adjacent words. Fortunately, my doctor checked back with the radiologist and discovered that the person transcribing the report had accidentally deleted a partial sentence from the text (eg do you know how your sleeve sometimes brushes past your trackpad and highlights some text and the next keystroke replaces that text?) Anyway, when we got the missing text, it included the following segment ".... this could be a concern and should be followed-up". So now I'm paranoid about simple little clerical errors that could be life threatening!

(2) After I broke my shoulder, several of the folks helping with my rehab said how helpful it would be if they could see my records. Since they were independent from the hospital, I had to cut/paste all the reports from the portal and take it to them. When they asked for the images too, I called the hospital and got the exact instructions re how to come and get a CD. I was thrilled to hear that it was no charge, I didn't need anything signed by the provider (even though she was an osteopath which isn't a licensed professional in Canada apparently, and she didn't work in the hospital), and that I could go to any of the hospital sites to get it. I triple-checked ALL the above points since I was surprised that the procedure was so favourable. The lady forewarned me that I needed a computer that had a CD drive in order to see the images.

So you can imagine my surprise when I went to get the CD at the 2nd site and they demanded a signed req form from the provider, otherwise it would cost $10! I called the 1st site and the lady reconfirmed everything she had told me on the phone, but the lady at the 2nd site wouldn't honour it. Grrrr! Fortunately it was only a $10 mishap, but it burned a lot of my time and frustration.

Even if things had gone smoothly though, it was still a big rigamarole to find out the procedure then drag myself downtown and home again, and then diddle with all the computers at our house to xfer the images and SW to a memory stick so my provider could see it. People who are ill are often not well enough to do all these steps to get their medical data.

Anyway, I certainly support the ability to grant access for a 3rd party (relative, caregiver or outside healthcare provider) to access my records directly, including images.

.....N

[Allison Browning]

Hi Nancy,

Hope your week is going well, and thank you so much for sharing your experiences! The situations you touched on are unfortunately not unheard of in the realm of patients looking to access their diagnostic imaging results. As advocates for our own care, and the care of others, I think it's critical to voice these inefficiencies. If we never discuss them, then how will change ever happen?

To touch more specifically on the topics you brought up;

1. Human error is almost impossible to avoid but with giving patients access to their records, it lessens the chance for these errors to remain permanently in our records. Glad to hear you are actively involved in reviewing your records once they are available!

If you don't mind my asking, how do you currently view and/or keep track of your medical records?

2. Previously I worked at a family doctors office which also had an allied health team, so I can echo the importance of including rehabilitation specialists in our care. Its unfortunate to hear the hospital did not recognize the need for sharing with allied health professionals and still charged for the disc. Its also unfortunate to hear about the lengthly and inaccessible process you had to go through to receive a copy of your own records. You are right in saying that this process is much harder for those who are ill or simply don't have the means to get around (i.e. mobility issues, lack of transportation, or not well enough to travel).

If you don't mind my asking, what is the name of the portal your hospital uses? Does this portal provide access to your medical images or just the reports? Additionally, does it provide you with the option to share your records with others from the portal?

3. Glad to hear you support the ability for 3rd parties to access records directly! One feature we were careful to implement into our functionality is our online request option is great for those with mobility issues who can't make a trip to their hospital or imaging centre, and allows for delegates to request on behalf of the patient.

Thanks again for engaging in this discussion with me, and sharing your experiences. If you have time, any insights or answers to the questions I had above would be greatly appreciated!

Warmly,
Allison