Consumers Wary of Insurers Accessing EMRs: Harris Interactive Survey

The percentage of poll respondents agreeing that insurers should have access to their EMRs fell three percent year-over-year.

Only about one-third of consumers polled by Harris Interactive believe their insurers should have access to their electronic medical records, data from the New York-based company found.

Harris and HealthDay, a Norwalk, Conn.-based medical news site, surveyed 2,035 US adults from June 8 to June 10.

Asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “My insurer should have access to the information in my EMR,” 30 percent strongly or somewhat agreed, while 44 percent strongly or somewhat disagreed. The rest were indifferent.

The level of agreement dropped three percent from last year’s poll, according to Harris.

Seventy-one percent of respondents agreed that EMRs were valuable tools in tracking their health, and 78% agree that all physicians treating them should have access to their EMR information.

The poll comes as companies including CIGNA, Trizetto and Salesforce.com have made investments in the EMR space over the past few months.

Nathan Golia is senior editor of Insurance & Technology. He joined the publication in 2010 as associate editor and covers all aspects of the nexus between insurance and information technology, including mobility, distribution, core systems, customer interaction, and risk ... View Full Bio