Health IT: HHS Should Assess the Effectiveness of Its Efforts to Enhance Patient Access to and Use of Electronic Health Information

The Department of Health and Human Services wants all Americans to be able to access their health records electronically. Health care providers that participated in HHS's Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program offered nearly 9 out of 10 patients the ability to access their health information online. We found that relatively few of these patients accessed their records online, and patients typically did so in response to a medical visit. We also found that HHS doesn't know how effective its efforts to increase online access have been. We recommended HHS develop performance measures to assess the effectiveness of these efforts.