Most patients view their test results before their doctor; some report low comprehension
You get a message that a test result is available in your online patient portal. Do you look at it right away, or do you wait to hear from your health care provider?
That may depend on several factors, including your digital literacy, income, age and experience communicating with doctors and nurses, according to a new study led by researchers at NYU School of Global Public Health. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, suggest there is room for improvement in how health information is presented to patients.
The 21st Century Cures Act requires that electronic health information—including test results like lab work and imaging—be released to patients as soon as the results are available. As a result, many see their results before their provider.
The Cures Act has restructured the traditional pathway between the release of a test result to a patient-clinician discussion," said Jemar Bather, assistant professor of biostatistics at NYU School of Global Public Health and the study's lead author. "We wanted to understand whether patients' likelihood of accessing test results—and understanding them—varies based on sociodemographic characteristics, health status, patient-centered communication and digital health literacy."
Who checks results first
The researchers analyzed data from the 2024 Health Information National Trends Survey, a representative sample of U.S. adults collected by the National Institutes of Health. A total of 4,982 respondents who had access to their electronic medical records and received a test result in the past year were included, representing nearly 175 million U.S. adults.
More than two-thirds of adults (68.6%) reported viewing their test results before hearing from a provider. Those who immediately viewed results were more likely to be older, female and have a higher income, multiple chronic health conditions, higher digital literacy and greater use of health-related social media.
Gaps in understanding persist
In addition, comprehension of test results varied. Among those who immediately viewed results, 6.6% said they had a poor understanding, 26.8% understood the results fairly well, 31.7% understood them well and 34.9% understood the results very well. Those who reported having the lowest understanding of their test results were more likely to be from the Midwest or South and to have experienced discrimination in medical care.
In contrast, people with higher digital literacy had a better understanding of their medical test results, as did those who experienced better patient-centered communication—for instance, feeling that health care professionals explain things in a way they can understand and involve them in decision-making.
Plain-language tools could help
"Health systems give you your data, but that does not mean that they put a lot of effort into making the information easy to understand on your own," said study author José Pagán, professor and chair of the Department of Public Health Policy and Management at NYU School of Global Public Health. "Health systems and online patient portal developers should look for innovative ways to improve how they communicate—for instance, using AI to summarize test results in plain language and provide an easy way to ask follow-up questions."
"While the Cures Act's goal of expanded patient access is being realized, a subset of patients who view their results before being contacted by their health care provider is having difficulty understanding what they see. Improving patient-centered communication may help close this comprehension gap," Bather noted.
In addition to Bather and Pagán, study authors include Melody Goodman of NYU School of Global Public Health, Zoe Lindenfeld of Rutgers University, Karen Fortuna of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and Guilherme Del Fiol and Kimberly Kaphingst of the University of Utah.
This article was originally published on MedicalXpress Breaking News-and-Events.