Patient-Reported Use of the After Visit Summary in a Primary Care Internal Medicine Practice

Participants completed a cross-sectional survey about their use of the after visit summary (AVS) at a previous primary care visit. Of 355 participants, 294 (82.8%) recalled receiving it, 67.4% consulted it, 45.9% consulted it more than once, and 31.6% shared the AVS. In multivariable analysis, highe...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sarita Pathak MPH, Gregory Summerville MD, Celia P Kaplan DrPH, Sarah S Nouri MD, MPH, Leah S Karliner MD, MAS
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2020-10-01
Series:Journal of Patient Experience
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373519879286
Description
Summary:Participants completed a cross-sectional survey about their use of the after visit summary (AVS) at a previous primary care visit. Of 355 participants, 294 (82.8%) recalled receiving it, 67.4% consulted it, 45.9% consulted it more than once, and 31.6% shared the AVS. In multivariable analysis, higher education and older age were associated with AVS consultation. Among the subset of 133 patients recalling personalized free-text instructions, 96% found them easy to understand and 94.4% found them useful. Our findings suggest that the AVS is a useful communication tool and improvement efforts should emphasize clarity for those most vulnerable to communication errors.
ISSN:2374-3735
2374-3743