National Partnership for Women & Families President Debra Ness in a statement said the draft is a “very welcome, very promising and very smart next step” toward achieving interoperability.

“We are especially pleased that the new roadmap focuses on interoperability not just among providers, but also patients and their family caregivers, recognizing them as equal partners in the continuum of care,” Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said in a statement.

Debra L. Ness, president, National Partnership for Women & Families, also applauded the draft roadmap. It’s “a very welcome, very promising and very smart next step in the effort to create a health IT system that will make healthcare more patient- and family-centered in this country. We are especially pleased that the new roadmap focuses on interoperability not just among providers, but also patients and their family caregivers, recognizing them as equal partners in the continuum of care and in electronic access to and use of health information.”

A new survey recently released by the National Partnership for Women & Families found that 86% of patients with online access to their EHRs use it, and they report higher levels of knowledge about their health and a desire to “do something” to improve their health.

Mark Savage, director of health IT policy and programs at the National Partnership, told Bloomberg BNA that patients advocates like himself and privacy experts are concerned that de-identified data, health records stripped of information that directly identifies the patient such as names or addresses, can be re-identified, or traced back to the original record.

Not only are more consumers accessing their online electronic health records (EHRs), but patients’ trust in the privacy and security of EHRs has increased since 2011, according to a recent National Partnership for Women & Families study.

“We have made progress in leaps and bounds in just a few short years,” said Mark Savage, the National Partnership for Women & Families’ director of health information technology policy and programs, in a statement. “But clearly there are barriers still to overcome, and this report breaks down policy implications for the meaningful use program as well as broader delivery system initiatives that must be carried out. And it’s an important reminder that meeting the needs of patients and families must always be at the core of health IT design and implementation.”

Patients’ online access to EHRs has nearly doubled, surging from 26 percent in 2011 to 50 percent in 2014, according to new study released by the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Patients this year are significantly more interested in accessing their electronic health records online than they were in 2011, according to a survey released by the National Partnership for Women & Families, EHR Intelligence reports.

The overwhelming majority of patients believe that electronic health records (EHRs) are useful for physicians and valuable for their care, according to a newly released survey by the National Partnership for Women and Families.

“We saw a dramatic increase in online access” by patients to their medical records, nearly doubling to 50% in the 2014 survey, compared with 26% in 2011, when a similar survey was conducted, said Mark Savage, director of HIT policy and programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families

The National Partnership for Women and Families is expected to release a report on consumer experiences with electronic and paper health record systems today at 1 p.m. phone conference. The survey report includes “recommendations for multiple communities including providers, policymakers and employers.”

“To date, the public discourse on health IT has largely focused on the views of doctors, hospitals and vendors,” said National Partnership President Debra L. Ness in a release. “It is crucial to hear what patients have to say about how they experience EHRs and health IT as they receive care and manage their health.”

Regardless of whether or not their physicians use EHRs or paper records, patients see significant value in EHRs, according to a study released Wednesday by the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Patients see “significant” value in electronic health records and want more access, according to a new report from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“Access to one’s own health information is a right guaranteed to all patients by HIPAA but it’s not well understood, even within the provider community,” says Erin Mackay, associate director of HIT programs for the National Partnership for Women & Families. “One of the great potentials for technology is the ability to put that information at the fingertips of patients — particularly as more individuals become caregivers to their children and, increasingly, to their parents as well.”

So what does patient engagement in research look like (question courtesy of the National Partnership for Women and Families)? PCORI responded with the following tweet: “Should engage early and often, but it is not one size fits all,” and then referenced their engagement rubric.

“What I’m not seeing is collaboration between consumer organizations and ACOs,” said Jennifer Sweeney, vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families. “Consumer groups have expertise when it comes to communicating with patients and families.”