The study analyzed responses on a nationally representative 2011-2012 survey.
Approximately 75 percent of patients said they were either somewhat or very confident in both the privacy and security of their medical records, according to the survey.
Interestingly, patients who reported receiving high-quality care were more than twice as likely to say they were confident in the privacy of their medical information (38.11 percent) than those who reported receiving fair or poor quality of care (15.69 percent). The same trend held true for confidence in the security of medical information, at 33.19 percent and 14.51 percent, respectively.
Additionally, the more “information efficacy” a patient has — the confidence for acquiring information — the more likely they were to report confidence in the privacy of medical information (35.9 percent) and security of medical information (31.8 percent) than those with low levels of information efficacy (20.0 percent).
“Our findings suggest it will be important to continue monitoring the effects of EHR adoption and HIE on privacy and security attitudes and behaviors,” the authors concluded. “Additionally, efforts should continue to encourage providers to secure medical records, provide patients with a meaningful choice in how their data are shared and enable consumers to access information they need to manage their care.”
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