What do patients want from online access to their GP record? v0.1

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    What do patients want from online access to their primary care record? A qualitative investigation into patients’ reported needs and expectations regarding online access.

  • IRAS ID

    256065

  • Contact name

    Brian McMillan

  • Contact email

    brian.mcmillan@manchester.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Manchester

  • Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

    N/A, N/A

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 12 months, 00 days

  • Research summary

    The government wants more people to use their GP health record securely online to help access primary care, and GP surgeries are now making this possible.

    Research shows benefits of online access to records. For example, people feel more in control and more able to communicate with healthcare staff. The down sides include some professionals not being keen on the idea, people worrying how secure this is, or not always understanding what is in their record.

    Research has mainly looked at the pros and cons of online access, or at how people look at their record. Few studies have asked people what they actually want.

    More research is needed to find out how to design patient records to help guide people towards staying healthy or cope with health problems. To get the most out of being able to see their health record online, we need to understand more about what people actually want from online access to records.

    This study has been funded by the National Institute for Health Research and aims to find out more about what people want from using their primary care record online, what they would like to be able to do, and what help they might need.

    We will interview patients and have group discussions to find out more about what people think about, and want from, access to their health record online. We will focus on two groups: people without any health problems, and people with more than one long term health condition. We will involve patients and the public at all stages of the research.

    Our findings will help us design a larger set of studies, work with companies that make patient records available online, and eventually help design better online records so that people can benefit from this and lead healthier lives.

  • REC name

    North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    19/NW/0293

  • Date of REC Opinion

    7 Jun 2019

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion