26 hours ago Education. •Identify Key Patient Portal Features and Benefits. •Plan the Implementation and Roll Out of a Patient Portal. •Integrate Patient Portals into Your Practice’s Patient Service Strategy. learfieldinteraction. >> Go To The Portal
Education. •Identify Key Patient Portal Features and Benefits. •Plan the Implementation and Roll Out of a Patient Portal. •Integrate Patient Portals into Your Practice’s Patient Service Strategy. learfieldinteraction.
A patient portal is a secure website that can interface with an EHR. The portal serves as a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, access point for patients. It can provide two-way communications between patients, providers, and other staff members. The facility will acquire a commercial off the shelf program to implement patient portal.
portal implementation took into consideration the resources, culture, and priorities of the organization. Table 1 summarizes the different implementation approaches, and the benefits and challenges of each. Patient Portal Series A patient portal is an online tool that gives patients direct access to their electronically stored health information.
This article is the first in a three-part series that will 1) discuss the benefits of a patient portal and offer tips for the planning and implementation process, 2) provide an in-depth look at features you should consider incorporating into a portal, and 3) suggest ways you can get patients into the habit of using your portal.
The outpatient clinic utilizes eMDS EHR software. The facility is moving toward phase two of meaningful use, adapting technology to make patients records electronically available. A patient portal is a secure website that can interface with an EHR. The portal serves as a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, access point for patients. It can provide two-way communications between patients, providers, and other staff members.
The Children’s Center Pediatric Clinic (TCCPC) and outpatient therapy program see more than 2,300 patients each year. There are not many facilities like TCCPC and its unique outpatient therapy that specializes in caring for complex medical patients. Many patients will travel long distances in order to make it to their appointments. Patient portals streamline communication and allow easy access to a child’s medical record; the parent is an active participant in their child’s healthcare. Patient portals offer secure access to patients’ health records online. The software encourages patients to access their records, communicate with providers, pay bills, and schedule appointments. The use of patient portals enhances the quality and portability of patient records.
Implementation of a patient portal is comprised of several intertwined components: marketing, enrollment, training, support, and workflow redesign. Although these topics will be discussed separately, the implementation strategy, marketing tactics, and enrollment efforts are difficult to separate, as strategy drives rollout methodology and tactics.
Patient portals are add-on modules to EHR systems and are rarely included among a health center’s “mission critical” requirements for an EHR. The features and functions of a portal are seldom explored in detail during the sales cycle, and portal limitations or deficiencies are often not discovered until implementation. Also, since providers are paying for or selecting the system, portals are often designed from their point of view rather than from the patient’s. This can impact the ease of use, features offered, and even technical requirements for patient access.
Both California law and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations contain provisions dealing with minors’ rights to access their health information , and accompanying rights to privacy and confidentiality of that information (HIPAA largely defers to state law). In general, the person who has the right or obligation to consent for treatment purposes also holds the privacy rights with respect to the data. In other words, if minors have the right to seek and obtain treatment on their own, without parental consent, they hold the privacy rights with respect to data about that treatment.2 To further complicate the matter, the age at which minors may consent for treatment on their own is based on the type of health service sought:
The California HealthCare Foundation works as a catalyst to fulfill the promise of better health care for all Californians. We support ideas and innovations that improve quality, increase efficiency, and lower the costs of care. For more information, visit us online at www.chcf.org.
Staff will spend less time on data entry. When you consider that registration information must be provided by every patient, you quickly realize the enormous amount of time your office staff spends entering that data into your computer system.
With 2014 just around the corner, practices that are moving on to Stage 2 of the federal meaningful use (MU) incentive program must prepare to meet the new re-quirements.
Start early. It takes considerable time to introduce your patients to the features available through your portal—and even longer to get them into the habit of using it regularly. “We knew that we had to embrace this new technology as part of the MU requirements and did not want to wait until the last minute to begin implementation,” said Ms.
When your patient portal goes live, should you roll out multiple features all at once or implement one component at a time?
Patient portals must be user friendly to sustain continued patient use. If your practice’s portal is not intuitive or if it is too cumbersome to move through the options, you’ll find your patients will avoid using it. “Our portal is provided by one of several third-party vendors that work directly with our EHR vendor,” said Ms. Woodke.