patient portal health literacy

How can patient portal technology improve health literacy and patient engagement?

Health literacy and patient web portals The conflicting findings may be partially due to racial and ethnic differences in health literacy or level of comfort in sharing private health information using mobile technologies. Several opportunities exist to improve the usability and acceptability of web portals for patients with limited healt …

What is the importance of health literacy?

Health literacy and patient portals Health literacy has been described as the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Improving health literacy may serve to promote concordance with therapy, engage patients in their own health care, and improve heal …

Is health literacy a barrier to access to Internet-based patient portal services?

Nov 05, 2015 · Patient portal adoption has rapidly increased, and portal usage has been associated with patients’ sociodemographics, health literacy, and education. Research on patient portals has primarily focused on the outpatient setting. We explored whether health literacy and education were associated with portal usage in an inpatient population.

Who is interested in using a patient portal?

Embedding Health Literacy Tools in Patient EHR Portals to Facilitate Productive Patient Engagement Many health care providers have opened their EHR systems to patients in order to increase information sharing and patient participation. Accessing to EHR has offered the promises of improving patient understanding, engagement, and outcomes.

What is a patient portal in healthcare?

A patient portal is a secure online website that gives patients convenient, 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection. Using a secure username and password, patients can view health information such as: Recent doctor visits. Discharge summaries. Medications.Sep 29, 2017

What are the 4 key components of having health literacy?

Within the definition of health literacy as individual capacities, the Institute of Medicine [8] consider cultural and conceptual knowledge, listening, speaking, arithmetical, writing, and reading skills as the main components of health literacy.Jan 25, 2012

What makes a good patient portal?

In order to help you evaluate common portal capabilities, we asked patients which portal features they would need the most: Scheduling appointments online. Viewing health information (e.g., lab results or clinical notes) Viewing bills/making payments.Jul 24, 2019

How do you engage patients in patient portal?

10 Secrets to Get Patients Using Patient Portals1) Bulk enrollment. ... 2) Get the whole office involved. ... 3) Promote the patient portal at every patient interaction. ... 4) Use every patient handout or marketing collateral to promote the patient portal. ... 5) Market the benefits, not the features.More items...•Feb 2, 2015

What is patient health literacy?

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.

What are the 3 levels of health literacy?

Nutbeam distinguishes between three types of health literacy: functional health literacy (basic reading and writing skills to be able to understand and use health information), interactive health literacy (more advanced cognitive and literacy skills to interact with health-care providers and the ability to interpret ...Jun 30, 2011

What are the benefits and challenges of implementing a patient portal?

From better patient engagement to difficulty with patient buy-in, patient portals present numerous challenges and benefits to enhance quality of care.Pro: Better communication with chronically ill patients.Con: Healthcare data security concerns.Pro: More complete and accurate patient information.More items...•Feb 17, 2016

How do you make a patient portal?

4 Steps to Successful Patient Portal Adoption, IntegrationOutline clinic or hospital needs, goals.Select a patient portal vendor.Create provider buy-in.Market the patient portal to end-users.Jun 6, 2017

How do patients feel about patient portals?

Some patients recognize the role of patient portals in their health care, reporting satisfaction with the ability to communicate with their health care teams and perform tasks such as requesting prescription refills conveniently [3,16].

How can the patient portal affect patient satisfaction?

Our model shows that patient portal use can influence patient satisfaction through the mediating effects of gratification, health self-awareness, and health perception. ... Therefore, by promoting effective patient portal use and fostering patient perceptions, health care organizations can improve patient satisfaction.

How do you optimize patient portals for patient engagement and meet meaningful use requirements?

Meet Meaningful Use Requirements The portal must be engaging and user- friendly, and must support patient-centered outcomes. The portal also must be integrated into clinical encounters so the care team uses it to convey information, communicate with patients, and support self-care and decision-making as indicated.

Why are EHRs important?

Although patients generally appreciate the access to their health records, currently, most EHR systems are used as data storage and communication tools and their potential for promoting productive patient engagement have not fully developed.

Why are EHRs open?

Many health care providers have opened their EHR systems to patients in order to increase information sharing and patient participation. Accessing to EHR has offered the promises of improving patient understanding, engagement, and outcomes.

What is a patient portal?

Patient portals enable people to access their health information electronically, but concerns about confidentiality and privacy breaches, particularly for young people, may be impeding portal adoption in New Zealand. This paper considers the legal and ethical framework relating to health information privacy and informed consent in New Zealand, and proposes an approach to implementing patient portals for young people. Shared portal access (where both a young person and their parent or guardian have access to the young person's portal) may be appropriate for young children whose parents or guardians are responsible for their health care. However, as children mature and their capacity to make health care decisions increases, general practitioners will need to consider shifting to independent portal access by competent young people. The circumstances of each young person, including their best interests and rights, cultural needs and their views on information disclosure should be taken into account.

How many people have difficulty understanding health information?

Nearly half of all American adults—90 million people—have difficulty understanding and acting upon health information. The examples below were selected from the many pieces of complex consumer health information used in America. • From a research consent form: “A comparison of the effectiveness of educational media in combination with a counseling method on smoking habits is being examined.” (Doak et al., 1996) • From a consumer privacy notice: “Examples of such mandatory disclosures include notifying state or local health authorities regarding particular communicable diseases.” • From a patient information sheet: “Therefore, patients should be monitored for extraocular CMV infections and retinitis in the opposite eye, if only one infected eye is being treated.” Forty million Americans cannot read complex texts like these at all, and 90 million have difficulty understanding complex texts. Yet a great deal of health information, from insurance forms to advertising, contains complex text. Even people with strong literacy skills may have trouble obtaining, understanding, and using health information: a surgeon may have trouble helping a family member with Medicare forms, a science teacher may not understand information sent by a doctor about a brain function test, and an accountant may not know when to get a mammogram. This report defines health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions” (Ratzan and Parker, 2000). However, health literacy goes beyond the individual obtaining information. Health literacy emerges when the expectations, preferences, and skills of individuals seeking health information and services meet the expectations, preferences, and skills of those providing information and services. Health literacy arises from a convergence of education, health services, and social and cultural factors. Although causal relationships between limited health literacy and health outcomes are not yet established, cumulative and consistent findings suggest such a causal connection. Approaches to health literacy bring together research and practice from diverse fields. This report examines the body of knowledge in this emerging field, and recommends actions to promote a health-literate society. Increasing knowledge, awareness, and responsiveness to health literacy among health services providers as well as in the community would reduce problems of limited health literacy. This report identifies key roles for the Department of Health and Human Services as well as other public and private sector organizations to foster research, guide policy development, and stimulate the development of health literacy knowledge, measures, and approaches. These organizations have a unique and critical opportunity to ensure that health literacy is recognized as an essential component of high-quality health services and health communication.