patient portal outcomes

by Merle Bayer 5 min read

Using Patient Portals to Improve Patient Outcomes ...

33 hours ago Patient portal interventions lead to improvements in a wide range of psychobehavioral outcomes, such as health knowledge, self-efficacy, decision making, medication adherence, and preventive service use. Effects of patient portal interventions on clinical outcomes including blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, and weight loss were mixed. >> Go To The Portal


The study, published in MIS Quarterly, found that meaningful patient portal use results in fewer hospitalizations, a decrease in emergency department visits, and lower readmission rates. When frequent patient portal users do get admitted into the hospital, it’s often for a shorter period than patients who do not use the patient portal.

Full Answer

How do patient portals affect clinical outcomes?

Patient portal interventions lead to improvements in a wide range of psychobehavioral outcomes, such as health knowledge, self-efficacy, decision making, medication adherence, and preventive service use. Effects of patient portal interventions on clinical outcomes including blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, and weight loss were mixed.

Do patient portal interventions improve psychobehavioral outcomes?

Feb 10, 2015 · Very few studies associated use of the patient portal, or its features, to improved outcomes; 37% (10/27) of papers reported improvements in medication adherence, disease awareness, self-management of disease, a decrease of office visits, an increase in preventative medicine, and an increase in extended office visits, at the patient’s request for additional …

Do health information technology portals improve outcomes?

Five studies reported overall patient portal use and its association with diabetes health and health care quality outcomes. Six studies reported e-messaging or email use-associated outcomes, and two studies reported prescription refill-associated outcomes. The reported health outcomes included the associations of patient portal use with blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein …

Does patient portal use improve patient-centered care in patients with diabetes?

Jun 08, 2020 · Data showed that patients who regularly used the patient portal were between 2 and 4 percent less likely to be hospitalized, which can amount to thousands of patients for the typical mid-sized hospital, the researchers said. When a hospitalization can cost up to $30,000 per patient, this can result in astronomical cost savings.

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Do patient portals improve outcomes?

Patient portal interventions lead to improvements in a wide range of psychobehavioral outcomes, such as health knowledge, self-efficacy, decision making, medication adherence, and preventive service use.

What are the benefits of patient portals?

The Benefits of a Patient Portal You can access all of your personal health information from all of your providers in one place. If you have a team of providers, or see specialists regularly, they can all post results and reminders in a portal. Providers can see what other treatments and advice you are getting.Aug 13, 2020

What are the benefits and challenges of using patient portals?

What are the benefits of patient portals?Patient portals are efficient. ... Patient portals improve communication. ... They store health information in one place. ... Patient portals satisfy meaningful use standards. ... They improve data accuracy. ... Patient portals make refilling prescriptions easy. ... They're available whenever you need them.More items...•Jul 15, 2019

Which information can be accessed through a patient portal test results?

The features of patient portals may vary, but typically you can securely view and print portions of your medical record, including recent doctor visits, discharge summaries, medications, immunizations, allergies, and most lab results anytime and from anywhere you have Web access.

What is the goal of hie?

Electronic health information exchange (HIE) allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share a patient's vital medical information electronically—improving the speed, quality, safety and cost of patient care.Jul 24, 2020

How would you encourage patients to use patient portal?

Here are nine ways to improve patient portal engagement.Enroll at the first appointment. ... Auto-enroll to schedule online appointments. ... Include a link to the portal when patients sign in. ... Link your portal sign up on all correspondence. ... Optimize for desktop and mobile. ... Empower all staff to sign patients up. ... Offer incentives.More items...•Aug 12, 2019

What are the cons of patient portals?

Even though they should improve communication, there are also disadvantages to patient portals....Table of ContentsGetting Patients to Opt-In.Security Concerns.User Confusion.Alienation and Health Disparities.Extra Work for the Provider.Conclusion.Nov 11, 2021

What are the advantages of patient portals to the patient and to the healthcare facility quizlet?

The patient portal supports two-way communication, which allows the patient to work with physicians between patient visits, request appointments, and receive reminders. These reminders can be for appointments, need for follow-up, and more.

What are the benefits of telehealth?

Advantages of telehealth Using technology to deliver health care has several advantages, including cost savings, convenience, and the ability to provide care to people with mobility limitations, or those in rural areas who don't have access to a local doctor or clinic.Oct 12, 2020

What are the five main features of the new healthcare portal?

5 Key Features Every Patient Portal Needs to OfferExcellent user experience. ... Branding flexibility. ... Flexible financing options. ... Loyalty rewards and incentives. ... Integration with existing systems.May 12, 2020

What makes the patient portal different from a PHR?

The Portal is controlled by the source system (EMR/EHR/Hospital). On the other hand, the Personal Health Record (PHR) is more patient centric, is controlled by a patient or family member, and may or may not be connected to a doctor or hospital (i.e. it may be tethered or untethered).Sep 6, 2012

What makes the patient portal different from a PHR Weegy?

A tethered PHR, as defined by the ONC, is an online interface tied to an EHR with which patients may view and sometimes interact with their health data. ... 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.Feb 17, 2017

What are the benefits of patient portals?

The evaluations indicated that patient portals could lead to improvements in clinical outcomes, patient adherence, patient–provider communication, patient empowerment, and patient satisfaction with health services.

How do patient portals affect health care?

Patient portals affect clinical outcomes, health service utilization, patient adherence, patient–provider communication, patient empowerment, and patient satisfaction with health services by four mechanisms. These mechanisms are: patient insight into information, activation of information, interpersonal continuity of care, and service convenience. The significance of these mechanisms differs per outcome. Reported outcomes of patient portals derive mostly from large and organized health service networks. In highly organized health service networks, patient portals appear to be complements to disease management programs rather than substitutes for these services. Paradoxically, patient portals may have higher impact in more fragmented contexts that are less conducive to patient portal implementation and use.

What are the contributions of TO-T?

TO-T made substantial contributions to study conception and design, acquisition of data, data analysis, and interpretation of data, drafted the article and revised it critically for important intellectual content, and provided final approval of the version published. AdB made substantial contributions to study conception and design, data analysis, and interpretation of data, revised the article critically for important intellectual content, and provided final approval of the version published. TGR made substantial contributions to study conception and design and as well as interpretation of data, revised the article critically for important intellectual content, and provided final approval of the version published. JvdK made substantial contributions to study conception and design as well as interpretation of data, revised the article critically for important intellectual content, and provided final approval of the version published.

How does a patient portal work?

And as a result, the patient portal works to cut healthcare costs, promising a positive return on investment for healthcare organizations. When patients are healthier, they require fewer healthcare interventions, and in turn spark less healthcare spending.

How long does it take for a hospital to readmission?

Hospital readmission is measured as having more than one hospital admission within a 30-day period, and is a key clinical quality measure for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) alternative payment programs. When patients were frequent patient portal users, they yielded 2 percent fewer hospital readmissions, the researchers reported.

What is EHR used for?

The EHR was used to obtain information on patient demographics (age at admission, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, primary language, payor information, and employment status) and clinical information known at the time of admission (admission status, admission service, and comorbidities), and hospital outcomes (30-day readmission, 30-day mortality, and inpatient mortality). Principal and secondary diagnoses and procedures, comorbidities, and All-Patient Refined Diagnosis Related Group (APR-DRG) weight 16 were collected based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes extracted from hospital discharge abstracts. Hospital length of stay (LOS) was calculated using the dates and times of hospital admission and hospital discharge.

When was the Mayo Clinic retrospective study?

This retrospective study included all adult patients admitted to Mayo Clinic Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, from August 1, 2012, to July 31, 2014, who had a patient portal account prior to hospitalization. If a patient had more than one inpatient admission during this time frame, only the demographic and clinical data from the first encounter was collected and analyzed. Patients were excluded if they were under 18 years of age at the time of admission. Hospital observation stays were not included. The study was approved by the Mayo Clinic Institutional Review Board.

When did the health insurance act give patients the right to view their medical records?

In 1996 , the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act gave patients the legal right to view and own their medical records. 1 Unrestricted patient access to medical records was somewhat difficult in the era of paper charts, but after the introduction of the electronic health record (EHR) and, subsequently, EHR-tethered personal health record electronic entry, or “patient portals,” patients’ access to their records became less challenging.

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Background and Significance

  • Health service organizations increasingly implement patient portals based on the belief that patient portals will enhance patient engagement, health outcomes, service efficiency, and convenience.1 A patient portal is a ‘secure website for patients, typically maintained by provider practices, that offers access to a variety of functions linked to a physician's EHR [electronic heal…
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Objective

  • Based on the realist line of thinking, the review aims to synthesize and analyze evaluations of patient portals to explain the reported outcomes. Our two main research questions are: 1. By what mechanism(s) do patient portals contribute to outcomes? 2. How can variations in outcomes across different contexts be explained?
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Materials and Methods

  • We adhered to the realist review method described in the RAMESES publication standards, published in 2013.4The reporting of our methods and results follows these standards.
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Results

  • Document flow diagram
    Figure 1illustrates the paper selection flow that led to a total of 32 evaluation studies.
  • Document characteristics
    Eleven studies evaluated the effect of a patient portal, portal module, or program offered through a patient portal on clinical outcomes. Eight studies examined the impact on healthcare utilization, and six looked into the effect on patient adherence. Patient–provider communication was an en…
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Discussion

  • Summary of findings
    Using a realist lens, we set out to answer (1) by what mechanism(s) patient portals contribute to outcomes, and (2) how variations in outcome across different contexts can be explained. To the first question, although not empirically tested, patient portal evaluators suggest at least four me…
  • Strengths and limitations
    We found that the studies rarely detail the mechanisms by which an intervention is expected to work. Consequently, the studies are not designed to empirically test the mechanisms that could explain how patient portals improve outcomes. Combined with a scarcity of small-scale context…
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Conclusion

  • Patient portals affect clinical outcomes, health service utilization, patient adherence, patient–provider communication, patient empowerment, and patient satisfaction with health services by four mechanisms. These mechanisms are: patient insight into information, activation of information, interpersonal continuity of care, and service convenience. The significance of the…
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Acknowledgements

  • We thank Jos Aarts for his thoughtful comments on earlier versions of the paper. We would also like to thank representatives from ZorgPortaal Rijnmond and PAZIO for their interest and support to study patient portals in the Dutch health system. Finally, we are grateful to Marleen de Mul for her continuous support of this research..
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Contributions

  • TO-T made substantial contributions to study conception and design, acquisition of data, data analysis, and interpretation of data, drafted the article and revised it critically for important intellectual content, and provided final approval of the version published. AdB made substantial contributions to study conception and design, data analysis, and interpretation of data, revised t…
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Funding

  • The research was supported by a grant from the Innovation Fund of the Institute of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
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