The Psychology Centre

Access to one's own health records: A pilot study of uptake, acceptability, and health outcomes in severe mental illness.

David B. Menkes - Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Auckland
Jim Warren, PhD - Professor of Health Informatics, School of Population Health, University of Auckland
Gaelle Dutu - Statistician, Waikato Clinical School, University of Auckland
John Fitzgerald, M.A., M.Sc., PhD. - Director/Consultant Clinical Psychologist, The Psychology Centre, Hamilton
Neville Puckey, MPS - Pharmacist, Hamilton
Martin Orr, FRANZCP - Senior Lecturer in Health Knowledge Management, University of Auckland; Consultant Psychiatrist & Clinical Director of Information Services, Waitemata DHB
Kim Southey - Maori Mental Health Strategic Manager, Waikato DHB
Jacquie Kidd, RN, PhD - Senior Lecturer in Nursing, Waikato Clinical School

Research Officer: Deborah Christini-Crawford

This project is funded by a grant to Assoc. Prof. David Menkes from the Waikato Medical Research Foundation.

People experiencing severe mental illness have a right to view and hold their health information (Health Information Privacy Code; Code of Consumers' Rights), but requests for information are often challenging and subject to delay. Consumers face further problems with the frequent unintelligibility of information once obtained, and the need to somehow store, collate and use it. Requests for drug information meet with mixed results; pharmacies may provide brief 'consumer orientated' handouts or overly detailed product data sheets; there is generally little calibrated to the needs of the individual.

The purpose of this project is to assess whether direct on-line computer access to medical records can overcome some of these difficulties. We have selected a software product for this project (SmartMed) which facilitates consumer access to their treatment plan, laboratory results, prescription details, and other relevant health information via a secure server. Consumers will be given the option to grant access to health professionals, family and friends. SmartMed also provides tools to interpret, manipulate (e.g., collate, tabulate, graph) store and reuse this information.

In order to assess the impact of the system, we propose several outcome measures, including how much use is made of the system, consumer satisfaction, use of hospital and pharmacy services, and changes in illness severity measured with the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale (HoNOS). These results will be complemented by interviews to capture expectations and experiences of people given such access, and also those of the mental health care team. This project is based on the principle that IT systems may aid communication between those involved in an individual's care - including the individual themselves.

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