usability of patient web portal

Patient portals provide patients access to their electronic medical record (EMR) information and often include functions such as secure communication with their providers.

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How effective are patient web portals?

Usability studies showed that errors encountered by portal users were attributable to issues with system design, assumptions about functionalities, and insufficient user knowledge. Patients reported that access to the portal made them feel more in control of their care and able to ask better questions.

Is patient portal utilization a good proxy for patient engagement?

 · Patient portals are web-based, patient-centered health care information systems linked to a patient’s electronic medical record. 2, 3 A patient portal is a password-protected online website that offers patients 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection. 2, 3 Patient portals were first introduced in the USA in the late 1990s, …

Is there a systematic review of measurement of patient portal utilization?

 · There were 32 different combinations of study metrics, identified in Table 3, with the two most common metric combinations being patient use/adoption, frequency, and intensity (n=9) and patient use/adoption alone (n=9). The majority of studies (53/87, 61%) analyzed three or fewer metrics, with 3.11 as the average number of metrics reported.

Are older adults less likely to use patient web portals?

 · Patient portal benefits include patients’ ability to access their clinical summaries online. Providers can also send lab results to patients via secure messaging accompanied by a brief message explaining the results (for example, “Your results are normal”) and any needed follow‐up instructions (for example, “Come back in 3 months for a recheck”).

What are the benefits of a patient portal?

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...•

What are the benefits and challenges of using patient portals?

What are the Top Pros and Cons of Adopting Patient Portals?Pro: Better communication with chronically ill patients.Con: Healthcare data security concerns.Pro: More complete and accurate patient information.Con: Difficult patient buy-in.Pro: Increased patient ownership of their own care.

What are the advantages of providing internet access to patients with a patient portal?

The patient portal is a secure online website providing patients 24 h access to the EHR, designed to facilitate patient engagement, increase self-management, improve patient and health provider communication outside of face-to-face visits, increase patient satisfaction from care received, and result in better clinical ...

Why is patient portal important in healthcare?

Portals can increase patient loyalty. The ongoing relationship and communication that occurs outside of appointments encourages patients to feel cared for and to remain loyal to your practice. Increase your value. Patients value the easy access to information and direct communication that comes with portal use.

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.

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 pros and cons of patients use of health information obtained online?

The pros of using the internet for medical adviceHelp you identify and understand a medical condition. ... Provide emotional support. ... Health websites are not always credible. ... Advice from a GP or online doctor is personalised. ... Online health research can lead to an inaccurate self-diagnosis.

What are the benefits of online services for healthcare professionals?

Pros of TelemedicineTelemedicine Cost Effectiveness & Healthcare Savings.Extended Specialist and Referring Physician Access.Better Patient Care Quality.Technical Training and Equipment.Reduced Care Continuity.Fewer In-Person Consultations.Tricky Policies and Reimbursement Rules.

What are the pros of EHR?

Electronic Health Records ( EHR s) are the first step to transformed health care. The benefits of electronic health records include: Better health care by improving all aspects of patient care, including safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, communication, education, timeliness, efficiency, and equity.

How do patient portals improve patient outcomes?

Most of the portal interventions used tailored alerts or educational resources tailored to the patient's condition. 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 is the advantage of consumer engagement in their health information and health records?

No Engagement Without Health Information Better understand their own current care and treatment, as well as that of family members in their care. Coordinate care and reduce duplication of services among multiple care providers.

Why do patients not use patient portals?

About seven in 10 individuals cited their preference to speak with their health care provider directly as a reason for not using their patient portal within the past year. About one-quarter of individuals who did not view their patient portal within the past year reported concerns about privacy and security..

What is a patient portal?

A patient portal is a secure online website, managed by a health care organization, that provides patients access to their personal health information [1-3]. Portals were developed to provide patients with a platform through which to claim ownership over their health care. For patients that adopt health care portals, usage of the portal has been shown to positively impact health outcomes [1]. Despite their introduction in the late 1990s to augment patient engagement [2], widespread adoption of patient portals was not seen until 2006 [2,4]. As of 2018, a reported 90% of health care organizations offer patients portal access, with the remaining 10% reporting plans to adopt this tool [5].

How does portal utilization affect health outcomes?

Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between patient portal utilization and health outcomes, specifically indicating a link between increased portal use and increased rates of patient engagement [6-9]. Notably, engaged individuals more actively participate in the management of their health care [10] and report enhanced patient satisfaction [11], a finding increasingly critical in patients with chronic diseases [12]. Patient portal utilization has been linked to “significant decreases in office visits…, changes in medication regimen, and better adherence to treatment” [13], along with improved chronic disease management and disease awareness [8,9]. Interestingly, even the content of patient messages was recently found to be associated with estimated readmission rates in patients with ischemic heart disease [14]. In these ways, patient portals have been cited as essential components of the solution to the cost and quality health care crisis in the United States [2].

What are the most commonly studied patient portal metrics?

Patient use was the most commonly studied patient portal metric, analyzed in 90% (78/87) of studies. Super user designations were only found in 24% (21/87) of studies, making this the least commonly studied metric. Table 2identifies the frequency with which each metric was included in each study, with totals for each metric [6-10,18,22-102]. There were 32 different combinations of study metrics, identified in Table 3, with the two most common metric combinations being patient use/adoption, frequency, and intensity (n=9) and patient use/adoption alone (n=9). The majority of studies (53/87, 61%) analyzed three or fewer metrics, with 3.11 as the average number of metrics reported. The definitions of these 271 metrics are summarized by study in Multimedia Appendix 1.

What is stratified user?

Users stratified in a way that distinguishes a high-utilization or high-activity group (eg, in terms of greater intensity, a categorically higher frequency, consistent duration of use, etc).

What is portal use?

Portal use by providers, care teams, or other staff. This use could be in terms of adoption, frequency, intensity, duration, or super user, per below; patient utilization grouped by provider practice/specialty also implies provider/practice adoption.

What are the coding purposes of super user?

For coding purposes, use/adoption, frequency, duration, intensity, and super user (or similar user stratification) were considered a priori themes from which to extract definitions; provider use emerged as a theme inductively. Super user, in this context, is synonymous with high utilizer and should not be confused with the information technology standard definition implying a user with elevated privileges. All metrics were coded as binary, indicating the presence of a measure for and/or definition of each respective metric. These data were coded and recorded in a spreadsheet containing the article citation information and columns for themes of interest for both portal use metric definitions and MU criteria. Extractors’ working definitions of metric types are summarized in Table 1.

Can portal utilization be meaningful?

Understanding how patient portal use has been defined and operationalized may encourage more consistent, well-defined, and perhaps more meaningful standards for utilization, informing future portal development.

Why is it persuasive to use a portal?

They found that it is particularly persuasive when providers encourage patients to use the portal because patients trust providers and value their opinions. One provider says he reinforces a patient’s use of the portal by closing all messages with “Thanks for using the portal.”.

What is a message in patients' own words?

Messages are in patients’ own words and not subject to others interpretation, biases, or attention to detail

Why is PHMG monitoring?

Messaging is monitored periodically to ensure that communication with patients is succinct and user-friendly.

How many clinics does PHMG have?

PHMG is an independent medical group with 11 clinics in southwest Idaho, provides both appointment‐based and urgent care. PHMG has 46 health care providers (including 12 mid‐level providers) and averages 200,000 patient visits per year. About half of PHMG’s patients are appointment‐based and half are urgent care. The practice specializes in:

What are the challenges of the portal?

One major challenge with the portal is the multiple step registration process . Patients provide their e‐mail address at the front desk and are given a password to register from home. Some patients fail to complete the registration process after leaving the clinic. Remembering and managing passwords and managing family accounts are also challenging for patients. For example, a parent may log in for one child and then ask questions about a second child. For providers and staff, a challenge is that there is no way to know whether a Web‐enabled patient actually uses the portal and there are no read receipts to confirm that patients have read a message.

When did PHMG start patient portal?

PHMG launched the patient portal in early 2010. As a first step, the physician champion piloted the portal for about 6 months before it was implemented in one clinic at a time. According to the physician champion, implementation was “easier than expected because everyone was already comfortable with eClinicalWorks, ...

Why is Qualis important?

Qualis has also been an important resource for information about the meaningful use rules. "We felt strongly that from a quality standpoint we could not succeed without going to electronic health records. I felt very strongly we had to invest in it because it would positively affect every patient that we encounter.".

How do patient portals help patients?

Patient portals show promise as a tool that can facilitate patient engagement and improve patients’ experiences. The design of inpatient portals can greatly impact how patients navigate and comprehend information in inpatient portals; poor design can result in a frustrating user experience. With a detailed understanding of user experience associated with using these tools, hospitals can be better positioned to support and encourage patient use of the tool. In particular, hospitals may be able to offer multi-modal approaches to teach patients how to use patient portals, including in-person training. This hands-on approach may be better able to create lasting engagement with the technology that continues as the patient transitions out of the hospital. Organizations should work closely with the development team regarding system design, upgrades, and training so adjustments are made in the best interests of inpatients. Organizations should also clearly define the role of an inpatient portal in regards to patient-provider communication and continuously assess its impact on patient satisfaction and clinician workflow.

Why are patient portals important?

Many policymakers and health advocates believe increased use of patient portals will empower patients to engage in better management of their care, and this will result in healthier populations and lower costs. Despite the interest in and proliferation of ambulatory patient portals, little is known about what motivates patients to adopt and continue to use portals, and what functionalitiespatients consider important for self-management of conditions. At the same time, research onpatient engagement through health information technology (HIT) in the inpatient setting hasonly included small-scale qualitative case studies examining limited technological parameters such as access to medication records or care team information.

Why do hospitals have patient portals?

Most healthcare organizations have implemented some form of a patient portal to meet meaningful use requirements mandated by the federal government. Providers hope that their EHR patient portal will help improve communication with patients, enabling them to intervene before a small medical problem turns into a hospital re-admission, ...

Why do patients have little interest in using portals?

That sounds wonderful, but here is the problem with most portals today: Patients have little interest in using them because they don’t offer enough value.

How to improve patient satisfaction and loyalty?

To achieve better outcomes and improve patient satisfaction and loyalty, providers must use technology that will facilitate continuous dialogue with patients utilizing personalized content and an empathetic tone. That two-way interaction will activate patients to be more participatory and empowered in their care, ...

What is meaningful patient engagement?

Meaningful and effective patient engagement means having conversations about what is happening with the health of patients. It’s daily contact with patients outside the four walls of the hospital. Because health is a moving target, historical snapshots will always leave out important information.

Do portals improve hospital outcomes?

A new study out of the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association in December last year found that 30-day readmissions, inpatient mortality, and 30-day mortality were virtually the same when comparing hospitalized patients who used portals with those who did not. The researchers concluded that patient portals might not ultimately improve hospital outcomes.