{"id":1527,"date":"2021-08-19T21:56:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T21:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pocket.health\/?p=1527"},"modified":"2025-05-12T18:04:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T22:04:31","slug":"is-the-doctor-always-right-not-if-the-information-in-your-health-record-is-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pockethealth.com\/patient-resources\/is-the-doctor-always-right-not-if-the-information-in-your-health-record-is-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the doctor always right? Not if the information in your health record is wrong!"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

By Dave deBronkart, Chief Patient Officer<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Have you or your family ever been affected by a mistake in your medical records? Perhaps you don\u2019t even know that it has happened. My own mother discovered that one doctor thought she was diabetic! Another had her thyroid condition wrong. Yikes! How can they do their jobs right, if the data in your chart is wrong?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Well, a speech by the CommonWell Alliance this month at the big HIMSS health IT conference<\/a> shared this eye-popping slide, about mistakes patients found when they reviewed their medical\u00a0records:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Yes, one in five<\/strong> patients who looked at their records found a mistake, and 40%<\/strong> said they found something serious! Serious, as in, \u201cNo, doctor, I don\u2019t have that diagnosis!\u201d or \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t had that surgery!\u201d\u00a0The data is from the OpenNotes movement, which we’ve covered here before.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Fortunately we\u2019re entering a new era of \u201chealth data transparency,\u201d where\u00a0 patients are increasingly able to see the same information as their doctors and nurses. In the past we couldn\u2019t do that, because our health data lived only in the medical office. But times are changing, patients now have access to more information and they\u2019re even spotting errors.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It\u2019s another example of how knowledge is power: without this knowledge you have no power to identify and help fix mistakes. Doctors have many patients to see, and nobody\u2019s in a better position to spot mistakes than you. When you\u2019re active, educated and engaged in your healthcare journey, better outcomes can be achieved.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The original article was in the Health Informatics <\/em>journal of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Assocation (JAMA) network. Titled Frequency and Types of Patient-Reported Errors in Electronic Health Record Ambulatory Care Notes<\/a>, it includes these thoughts, which we think make a great case for why everyone should know what\u2019s in their medical records:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n