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Background: Low health literacy, low levels of positive belief and privacy and security concerns have been identified as a significant barrier to personal electronic health record uptake and use. An important tool for overcoming these barriers is the consumer-facing information which accompanies the system. My Health Record (MyHR) is the Australian national e-health record system, for which a large suite of online resources exists to facilitate consumer registration and use. This study uses a number of different measures of health resource quality to assess the MyHR online consumer-facing information and identify any gaps or areas for improvement. Objective: To analyse the quality and content of the online consumer-facing resources which support the uptake and use of MyHR. Method: Australian information resources aimed at healthcare consumers about the MyHR were included in this study. A comprehensive search using Internet search engines was conducted to locate all online consumer-facing resources about MyHR from both government and non-government sources. Readability (measured by Flesch–Kincaid grade level), year of publication/review, publishing organisation type, presentation style, linked websites, target audience, and themes were identified as important measures of health information quality, and these were recorded and reported on for each resource. Results: Eighty resources met the inclusion criteria. The mean Flesch–Kincaid grade level was 11.8. Most resources were created by Australian government sources (n = 55), and the most common target audience was the general public (n = 65). Registration (n = 51), privacy/security (n = 49), and benefits of use (n = 46) were the most common resource themes. Conclusion: The authors identified a number of gaps and areas for improvement in the provision of consumer-facing information about MyHR. Readability is too high for the general Australian population, and there are few translated resources, which means that the information provided does not cater to people with low literacy levels, communication disability, and/or difficulties in understanding written English. The target audiences for resources do not reflect priority groups that were identified during the MyHR development processes. There are also gaps in information provision about how consumers can use MyHR as a tool to meaningfully engage with health professionals and services to support their own person-centred care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Manual data-entry of handwritten laboratory test requests into electronic information systems has implications for data accuracy. This study sought to identify the types and number of errors occurring for handwritten serology test requests received from outpatient clinics. Methods: A 15-day audit at a serology laboratory in Sydney, Australia, compared the content of all transcribed serology outpatient test requests in the laboratory information system with the handwritten request form. Results: One or more errors were detected in 67/627 (10.7%) audited requests (N=68 errors). Fifty-one of the errors (75.0%) were transcription errors: the wrong test was transcribed in 40/68 cases (58.8%) -- ten of these occurred when the abbreviations 'HBsAb' and 'HBsAg' were confounded for one another -- and transcribed requests were missing a test in 11/68 cases (16.2%). The remaining 17 non-transcription errors (25.0%) described request forms not signed by the ordering clinician, mislabelled specimens, and wrong tests due to computer algorithm errors. Conclusions: Manual data-entry of handwritten serology requests is an error-prone process. Electronic ordering has the potential to eliminate illegible handwriting and transcription errors, thus improving data accuracy in hospital information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients have been able to access clinical information from their paper-based health records for a number of years. With the advent of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) access to this information can now be achieved online using a secure electronic patient portal. The purpose of this study was to investigate maternity patients' use and perceptions of a patient portal developed at the Mater Mothers' Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. A web-based patient portal, one of the first developed and deployed in Australia, was introduced on 26 June 2012. The portal was designed for maternity patients booked at Mater Mothers' Hospital, as an alternative to the paper-based Pregnancy Health Record. Through the portal, maternity patients are able to complete their hospital registration form online and obtain current health information about their pregnancy (via their EMR), as well as access a variety of support tools to use during their pregnancy such as tailored public health advice. A retrospective cross-sectional study design was employed. Usage statistics were extracted from the system for a one year period (1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013). Patients' perceptions of the portal were obtained using an online survey, accessible by maternity patients for two weeks in February 2013 (n=80). Descriptive statistics were employed to analyse the data. Between July 2012 and June 2013, 10,892 maternity patients were offered a patient portal account and access to their EMR. Of those 6,518 created one (60%; 6,518/10,892) and 3,104 went on to request access to their EMR (48%; 3,104/6,518). Of these, 1,751 had their access application granted by 30 June 2013. The majority of maternity patients submitted registration forms online via the patient portal (56.7%). Patients could view their EMR multiple times: there were 671 views of the EMR, 2,781 views of appointment schedules and 135 birth preferences submitted via the EMR. Eighty survey responses were received from EMR account holders, (response rate of 8.1%; 80/985). The majority of respondents indicated they would use the portal and access their EMR for future pregnancies (86.2%; 69/80). Approximately half looked at their EMR after a visit with their care provider (51.3%); 41/80) and 37.5% (30/80) viewed their EMR before, to prepare for their visit. The majority (65.8%) thought that the EMR improved their ability to understand and recall appointments and almost half (48.1%) thought that with the EMR they were less likely to repeat pregnancy information to caregivers. This study provides the first Australian evidence of a patient portal system, tied to an EMR, working effectively in a maternity care context. It provides new evidence that portals can deliver benefits to maternity patients in terms of providing quick and easy access to current personal and general health information and support patients in their ability to recall and prepare for appointments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]