That’s true; my care team at home uses Epic. I had some important MRIs and several series of blood tests—over years—that were done at outpatient facilities.

And my chart is so dense that I was concerned it would just take too much sifting. I found it made much more of an impact for me to simply hand the relevant clinical note in question to them and they could look at it right then…instead of me trying to specify to them the year, speciality and physician I saw so they could see it. I’ve had that happen even with my care team at home where they’re scrolling and we’re eating time while they can’t find the thing they’re looking for while digging through the section for “additional media” and attachments. I didn’t want them to get discouraged because of the clunkiness of either doing that or pulling out a USB drive.

I wondered if it would be over the top, but the few times I went to the hard copies, I was really grateful I could because it made a difference and felt more impactful.

My second time with an evaluation (different clinic), I created my own packet of records with the pieces that I felt were most relevant and told my story. I had chosen the turn off Care Everywhere in Epic a while back because there are errors and misrepresentations in my chart that have causes physicians to stereotype me and in some cases they’ve used information in those records to decline to treat me. I didn’t want to risk that happening again, so I kept it off because I wanted to be the one to “present my case.”

I dropped the packet off a few days before my visit. This was years after my first visit there…so even more records and he felt more important to highlight the most important parts.

It was 55 pages, too big for My Chart and if I faxed it I imagined a huge pile on the floor. I was in town a few days early, so I just decided to drop it off.

Both times, the first time with hard copies from the binder, the physicians were really grateful. And the second time, the physician doing my evaluation was also very grateful and specifically said it was very helpful to have it in hand and culled down to the most important parts from my home care team and me.

But…of course it just depends on what you’re most comfortable with! (And if you’re somewhere that uses Epic.)