Patient's perspectives about the immediate online access of bronchoscopy biopsy results through a patient portal.

BACKGROUND

The 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule requires healthcare organizations to immediately release patient results through an online portal. This may improve patient safety and reduce anxiety. However, little is known about patient's perspective with cancer diagnoses. We conducted a quality improvement (QI) project to assess perspectives on immediate access to bronchoscopy results and interventions to improve patient experience.

METHODS

This QI project was conducted over 3 months and all patients who had a bronchoscopy for any reason were approached pre-procedure with a questionnaire requesting demographic information, education, experiences using the portal and their perspectives as to receiving immediate results. A post-procedure questionnaire was administered 14 days later. Patient comments were collected pre and post procedure. Descriptive statistics were used.

RESULTS

A total of 194 patients completed the pre-procedure questionnaire and 166 completed the post-procedure questionnaire. The average (SD) age was 66(12.3), 51% were male, 94% were White, and 40% had a college degree or higher. Pre-procedure, 66.5% used the portal; 51.5% routinely viewed results and 50% said it would reduce their anxiety. Post procedure, 66.7% with cancer viewed their results versus 70.5% without cancer. 37.6% did know how to interpret the result. 9% of cancer patients were completely satisfied with the explanation; 47.2% were more worried. In the future, 48.4% want a phone call and a link to an education video.

CONCLUSION

The immediate release of biopsy results should be tailored to patient preferences to reduce negative psychological impact of receiving a cancer diagnosis without immediate provider support.