Crying wolf: Consumers may be more willing to share medication information than policymakers think.

Lay people were presented with a decision scenario that required them to choose whether to share their medication information with three different types of physicians, and seemed to be unaware of the possible consequences of their choices.

Abstract

Current health IT policy directions assume lay people want to make explicit choices about who can access elements of their health information. To test this assumption, we presented lay people (N=31) with a decision scenario that required them to choose whether to share their medication information with three different types of physicians. Participants generally chose to share all of their medication information, citing anticipated clinical care benefits as the main reason for their choices. They seemed, however, unaware of the possible consequences of their choices.