Access study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of patient access to medical test result services in general practice.
IRAS ID
249637
Contact name
Gemma Lasseter
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Increasingly patients are being offered the opportunity to access medical test results electronically, through online access and other methods such as text messaging. This has the potential to offer benefits to both patients and practices, but could result in unintended negative consequences and the evidence on both sides is currently limited. Our research aims to find out what types of electronic access to medical records are currently being used in general practices in England, patient and GP practice experiences of these systems, and draw together the types of costs and benefits linked to electronic test result access. To do this our project will have three phases. In the first phase we will develop a questionnaire, and send this to a sample of practices across England to identify what electronic access to medical tests is currently being offered to patients by what types of practices (for example results online, by text message). We will also obtain pseudoanonymised patient records from a sample of practices to find out if patients who access their medical test results differ from those patients who do not with respect to age, gender, social deprivation, and health conditions. In the second phase we will find out about patients’ and general practice staffs’ views about electronic patient access to results. We will do this by doing qualitative interviews with patients and general practice staff to find out their experiences and views of using (or not) the electronic access to medical test services offered by their practice, and what helps and hinders using them. In the last phase we will draw the questionnaire, patient data and interview information together to develop a framework which could be used to conduct an economic evaluation in the future. Our results will be of use to policy makers and practices looking to roll-out electronic access of test results to patients in the best way possible.
REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
18/WA/0268
Date of REC Opinion
3 Aug 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion