Greenhalgh attacks HealthSpace response

The author of a study of the personal health record portal HealthSpace has attacked the Department of Health’s response to the research.

Professor Trish Greenhalgh published a paper in the BMJ yesterday that reported that patients found HealthSpace neither useful nor easy to use.

However, the DH said HealthSpace would continue to be developed and described the research as "a historical snapshot" rather than an insight into patients’ needs and expectations.

Professor Greenhalgh told EHI Primary Care: “Given the amount of public money that went into the work reported, it is surely of some public concern that the findings have been put aside so promptly by policymakers.”

Professor Greenhalgh said the research team from University College London did not set out to present HealthSpace as a failure but to undertake an impartial and rigorous independent evaluation.

She added: “The DH response illustrates precisely the point we were making in the paper – that in the policy mindset the active agent is the HealthSpace technology which is perceived as having inherent benefits which patients will be “given” and that the key task is to keep modifying the technology.”

She also questioned the validity of the DH’s assertion that its own research showed that patients were keen to have access to their medical records as well as wanting medical updates and test results to be available online.

She added: “As we commented in our report ‘The Devil’s in the Detail’: ‘This survey raises questions about whether the sampling frame (mostly internet users who were currently seeking health information online) was representative of the wider population and what significance to attach to the fact that around 40% of people who commenced the survey did not complete it’.

“The accuracy of prospective users’ predictions about how and how frequently they ‘would’ use the technology is also questionable, and it should also be noted that the closed response options did not include the statement ‘I would not use HealthSpace for anything’.”

The coalition government last month launched a three month consultation on proposals to deliver “an information revolution’ to patients.

The 68 page document makes no mention of HealthSpace. The document does set out plans to provide patients with greater control of their records, although it adds that a ‘one size fits all approach’ is unlikely to work.