patient portal and elderly journal

Are older adults interested in using patient portals?

Oct 16, 2017 · The older adult population (65 years or older) in the United States is growing, and it is important for communities to consider ways to support the aging population. Patient portals and electronic personal health records (ePHRs) are technologies that could better serve populations with the highest health care needs, such as older adults. Objective

Can patient portals and ephrs be integrated into older adults’ health management?

Most of the older adults are interested in using a patient portal regardless of health literacy level, previous patient portal adoption, or experience navigating health information on the Web. Research targeting informal caregivers of older adults who are unable or …

Are prior patient portals a tool for health care engagement?

Sep 02, 2018 · Implications: Patient portal designs should be optimized to usability needs of older adults. Portals preferably include medical history information, physicians’ notes and require prompt responses of providers. Keywords Patient portal, technology acceptance, usability, user interaction, patient provider communication, elderly Introduction

What are the key features of a patient portal?

The aim of this study was to assess older adults’ perceived usability of patient portals they currently use. This was a secondary data analysis using selected baseline data from an online trial that tested the effects of a 3-week Theory-Based Patient Portal eLearning Program, and included 272 older adults recruited online.

What are the benefits of EHR?

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant proliferation in the implementation and use of electronic health records (EHRs) creating vast opportunities for improvement in the efficiency and quality of patient care as well as reduction in healthcare costs. 1 Driven by a multitude of social and economic factors, most notably financially-overstretched healthcare systems and patients’ wishes for a more active role in the management of their disease, patient portals are increasingly being seen as powerful tools for health promotion. A patient portal is often tethered to the EHR of the hospital and most portals offer the same set of basic functions to patients, such as a secure means to schedule appointments, view laboratory results, request medication prescriptions and send secure messages to a healthcare team. 2 – 4 Older adults, aged 50 years and above, typically need healthcare services related to multi and comorbidity problems and for this reason can benefit in particular from the use of a portal. Access to their medical record content and interaction with their providers via a portal can support them specifically in maintaining wellness and independence during the management of their medical condition (s). 5

Who approved the study of the Mijn Dossier?

This study was approved by the Medical Ethical Committee of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. Consent by patients for scientific research was included in the terms and conditions of ‘ Mijn Dossier ’ of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam.

How many respondents had explicit comments on communication with the medical staff?

Twenty-two respondents (17%) had explicit comments on communication with the medical staff, with 19 (15%) of them indicating a negative experience. Physicians’ unresponsiveness to respondents’ messages sent via MyChart was a clear source of dissatisfaction: ‘Not every doctor looks at the record and it sometimes takes days or even longer before a message is answered or sometimes there is no answer at all’ (female, 73).

Who is MWJ?

Prof. Dr MWJ is head of the research laboratory of Human Factors and Usability Studies at the Department of Medical Informatics at the Academic Medical Center of Amsterdam, where this research took place. Dr LP is an expert in Human Factor methods in Health Informatics. GW is a PhD student and expert in Human Factor methods for mobile devices. KM is a Master Medical Informatics student and Medical Doctor. Study conception was created by MWJ, LP and GW; design was created by LP and GW. Acquisition of data was performed by GW. Analysis and interpretation of data was performed by KM, GW and LP. Drafting of manuscript was performed by GW, KM and LP was involved in writing the manuscript from the first version onwards. MWJ was further involved in critical revision of the manuscript.

What is a MyChart survey?

The MyChart web support team created an online survey in Dutch with open-ended questions (Online Appendix A). Patients could provide compliments and/or suggestions on main functionalities of MyChart, including the registration and login process, the messaging feature and viewing/editing of medical information. The survey served to gain insight in how MyChart’s functionalities could be improved. The management team of MyChart in the AMC set the survey’s requirements: it had to be non-obtrusive regarding a patient’s regular MyChart use, thus short in length and not excessively present or marketed while a patient used MyChart. A patient communication advisor and two eHealth specialists of the AMC pre-tested and approved the survey. Consent by patients for scientific research was included in the terms and conditions of MyChart and this study was approved by the Medical Ethical Committee of the AMC.

Abstract

The motivating factors that influence patient portal acceptance among the elderly are not well understood. Using the social heuristic theory, the elaboration likelihood model, and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, this study proposes a model that examines the persuasive mechanisms for the elderly to use patient portals.

Introduction

The healthcare industry is paying greater attention to improving patient outcomes through better provider-patient communication (Tang et al., 2013; Chrischilles et al., 2014). One such tool that is seeing greater utilization by healthcare providers is the patient portal.

What is a patient portal?

Patient portals are intended to engage patients by giving them access to medical information ; however, if patients are unable to understand the information or the system is not usable, patients will not take advantage of them. Despite several aforementioned drawbacks, apps have used evolving innovative designs to engage consumers and offer unique features and functions that could be translated to patient portal design. For instance, Apple's ResearchKit's Diabetes app pings the user daily to update disease and symptom-related information. Check-in questions or user-friendly alerts in portals could similarly be explored for engaging more patients their health care. Alerts could ask if the patient understands an abnormal result, direct them to helpful resources, and encourage test result follow-up. Finally, test results in the portal need to be easily understood by laypeople or displayed using simplified medical terms. For example, a portal might display elevated cholesterol as "↑LDL cholesterol," or even just display the number without a flag, whereas a health app may label it as “bad cholesterol.”

Who wrote Patient Portals and Health Apps: Pitfalls, Promises, and What One Might Learn from the

This statement accompanies the article Patient portals and health apps: Pitfalls, promises, and what one might learn from the other authored by Jessica L. Baldwin and co-authored by Hardeep Singh, Dean F. Sittig, Traber Davis Giardina and submitted to Healthcare as an Article Type. Authors collectively affirm that this manuscript represents original work that has not been published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.We also affirm that all authors listed contributed significantly to the project and manuscript. Furthermore we confirm that none of our authors have disclosures and we declare noconflict of interest.

What is the use of health information technology?

Widespread use of health information technology (IT) could potentially increase patients’ access to their health information and facilitate future goals of advancing patient-centered care. Despite having increased access to their health data, patients do not always understand this information or its implications, ...

How can information technology improve patient care?

There is growing interest in electronic access to health information and the use of digital data for both disease and health-related tracking. Widespread use of health information technology (IT) could potential ly increase patients’ access to their health information and facilitate future goals of advancing patient-centered care.1 For example, health IT can be used to facilitate information exchange with clinicians and instruct patients when to act upon clinical issues, such as out of range physiologic parameters, follow-up of test results, and complications of medication use. 2 Tools such as personal health records, patient portals, and various mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps) have been developed to help patients engage in their own care. Already, a significant number of patients use health IT; therefore, it is essential that patient-facing health IT be tailored to their needs. In this paper, we discuss two forms of patient-facing health IT tools—patient portals and apps—to highlight how, despite several limitations of each, combining high-yield features of mHealth apps with portals could increase patient engagement and self-management and be more effective than either of them alone. This could potentially improve both patient experience and outcomes related to patient-facing health IT.

What is the HealthKit app?

In June 2014, Apple announced the HealthKit cloud application programming interface (API) and its partnership with Epic (Verona, WI), an electronic health record vendor who also makes MyChart (a popular patient portal), and the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN).