who controls patient portal

by Herminio Goyette 8 min read

The Patient Portal: Giving People Control Over Their …

36 hours ago  · The most obvious benefit is that a patient information portal reduces friction between the health care process and the patient. A better understanding of patient portals can be achieved by first ... >> Go To The Portal


How do patient portals benefit providers and patients?

 · The most obvious benefit is that a patient information portal reduces friction between the health care process and the patient. A better understanding of patient portals can be achieved by first ...

How do patients Register on the patient portal?

 · All staff in the practice, from the telephone and front desk staff to the physicians, play a role in getting patients to sign up for the portal. Patients may be especially interested in the portal at particular moments, such as when they are frustrated with telephone wait times or playing “telephone tag.”

Can a patient have more than one portal for their doctor?

 · EHRs enable patient portals, as they ensure access to personal health information at any given point of time — from any place with an internet connection. This information includes discharge summaries, immunizations, lab results and …

Are patient portals protected by HIPAA?

 · 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.

image

Is patient portal secure?

Patient portals have privacy and security safeguards in place to protect your health information. To make sure that your private health information is safe from unauthorized access, patient portals are hosted on a secure connection and accessed via an encrypted, password-protected logon.

Who is FollowMyHealth affiliated with?

Allscripts LLCFollowMyHealth® is provided by Allscripts LLC. Allscripts is responsible for the portal's operation and security, and Allscripts' terms-of-use govern the use of the portal.

Are patient portals confidential?

Yes, many patient portals are secure as they have security and privacy safeguards to keep your information protected. To ensure your data remains protected from any unauthorized access, these healthcare portals are hosted on a secure connection and can be accessed via a password-protected login.

Who manages shares and solely controls the personal health record PHR )?

Terms in this set (20) The PHR is owned by the patient. Patient data, such as blood sugar results from glucometers, may be downloaded into a personal health record.

Who owns FollowMyHealth?

AllscriptsHealth Grid Holding Company LLC / Parent organizationAllscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc. is a publicly traded American company that provides physician practices, hospitals, and other healthcare providers with practice management and electronic health record technology. Wikipedia

How do I delete my FollowMyHealth account?

To delete your account, click “My Account” in the upper right-hand corner of your FollowMyHealth homepage. Then, click on “Preferences.” Then, click “Delete your UHR” under “Account Preferences.” The system will prompt you to confirm once more. If you so choose, click “Yes,” and your account will no longer be active.

What are the disadvantages 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.

Are patient portals protected by Hipaa?

Online patient portals allow patients to view their medical records, schedule appointments, and even request refills of prescriptions, anywhere the patient has access to the Internet. Patient portals contain information that constitutes electronic protected health information (ePHI) under the HIPAA Security Rule.

What are the pros and cons of using a patient portal?

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 makes the patient portal different from a PHR?

Patient portals are distinct from PHRs because they are tethered to the clinician-facing EHR. Most EHR vendors sell patient portals as a part of the overall software suite, and patient portals came to prominence as a part of meaningful use requirements.

What is the difference between EHR and PHR?

What's the Difference? Whereas an electronic health record (EHR) is a computer record that originates with and is controlled by doctors, a personal health record (PHR) can be generated by physicians, patients, hospitals, pharmacies, and other sources but is controlled by the patient.

What is the difference between EMR and EHR?

It's easy to remember the distinction between EMRs and EHRs, if you think about the term “medical” versus the term “health.” An EMR is a narrower view of a patient's medical history, while an EHR is a more comprehensive report of the patient's overall health.

What is a patient portal?

Patient portals are healthcare -related online applications that allow patients to interact and communicate with their healthcare providers, such as physicians and hospitals . Typically, portal services are available on the Internet at all hours of the day and night. Some patient portal applications exist as stand-alone web sites ...

How do patient portals benefit patients?

Patient portals benefit both patients and providers by increasing efficiency and productivity. Patient portals are also regarded as a key tool to help physicians meet "meaningful use" requirements in order to receive federal incentive checks, especially for providing health information to patients.

What are the shortcomings of a patient portal?

The major shortcoming of most patient portals is their linkage to a single health organization. If a patient uses more than one organization for healthcare, the patient normally needs to log on to each organization's portal to access information. This results in a fragmented view of individual patient data.

Is a patient portal HIPAA compliant?

While there may be systems that are not HIPAA compliant, certainly most patient and practice portals are secure and compliant with HIPAA regulations. The use of SSL and access control patterns are commonplace in the industry. Patient access is typically validated with a user name and password.

What is HIPAA regulation?

Health care providers in the US are bound to comply with HIPAA regulations. These regulations specify what patient information must be held in confidence. Something as seemingly trivial as a name is viewed by HIPAA as protected health information.

What is e-visit?

E-visits (remote use of medical services) may soon become one of the most commonly used options of patient portals. The most likely demographic for uptake of e-visits are patients who live in remote rural areas, far from clinical services.

When did Dover Family Physicians adopt EHR?

Dover Family Physicians adopted an electronic health record (EHR) system in 2008 with a goal of improving the quality of patient care and especially strengthening preventive care services. The practice has focused on ways to use the EHR to engage patients and their family members in their health and healthcare through a patient portal implementation. The practice, located in Dover, Delaware, has four physicians and two physician assistants, and provides primary care to more than 800 patients weekly.

How to get the most value from an EHR?

To get the most value from an EHR, practices will need to invest time in training and preparation. Some customization of the system will likely be needed based on how the practice functions and the individual work styles of the various providers.

How long does it take for a nurse to respond to a patient?

The practice established standards for response times of within 4 hours for more urgent questions to 2 days for prescription refills

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, ...

Is the portal easy to use?

It’s really very easy to use. If you use the Internet, you’ll most likely find the portal helpful and easy to navigate. They found that it is particularly persuasive when providers encourage patients to use the portal because patients trust providers and value their opinions.

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 implement EHR?

In 2007 PHMG implemented an EHR system, eClinicalWorks, as part of a strategy to improve quality of care and facilitate coordination of care across its multiple clinic locations. In preparing for implementation, PHMG proceeded with:

What is the PHMG strategy?

PHMG had a strategy of ensuring that patients hear about the portal from multiple sources during each clinical visit. To execute this strategy, PHMG used several methods of communication, including:

What is a patient portal?

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: 1 Recent doctor visits 2 Discharge summaries 3 Medications 4 Immunizations 5 Allergies 6 Lab results

What is a tethered PHR?

The ONC’s definition of a tethered PHR is very similar to the definition that the agency provides for patient portals: 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.

When did Google Health shut down?

However, the company failed to spark consumer interest, and eventually shut down the product on January 1, 2013.

Can minors consent to mental health services?

Additionally, some state laws permit unemancipated minors to consent to receive certain types of services on their own, such as reproductive, substance abuse, or mental health services. The Guttmacher Institute provides a summary of minors' consent laws by state.

Which states have HIPAA protections?

A handful of states, including California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Maryland, have taken steps to strengthen HIPAA's health insurance confidentiality protections such as requiring insurers to honor patients' confidentiality requests, particularly if they involve sensitive services.

Is HIPAA a confidentiality law?

HIPAA's confidentiality rules are challenging enough to apply in a typical patient scenario, with an adult patient making his or her own health care decisions. When third parties such as parents of adolescent patients are involved, privacy considerations become even more complex. Physicians must consider not only federal and state laws ...

Do foster children need consent?

Children in foster care require special consent and privacy considerations. Although this area is highly dictated by state law, generally the state's department of social services can consent to health care for a child in the foster system.

image

Overview

Patient portals are healthcare-related online applications that allow patients to interact and communicate with their healthcare providers, such as physicians and hospitals. Typically, portal services are available on the Internet at all hours of the day and night. Some patient portal applications exist as stand-alone web sitesand sell their services to healthcare providers. Other portal applications are integrated into the existing web site of a healthcare provider. Still others …

Features and benefits

The central feature that makes any system a patient portal is the ability to expose individual patient health information in a secure manner through the Internet. In addition, virtually all patient portals allow patients to interact in some way with health care providers. Patient portals benefit both patients and providers by increasing efficiency and productivity. Patient portals are also regarded as a key tool to help physicians meet "meaningful use" requirements in order to receiv…

Disadvantages

The major shortcoming of most patient portals is their linkage to a single health organization. If a patient uses more than one organization for healthcare, the patient normally needs to log on to each organization's portal to access information. This results in a fragmented view of individual patient data.

Practice portals

Portal applications for individual practices typically exist in tandem with patient portals, allowing access to patient information and records, as well as schedules, payments, and messages from patients. Most patient portals require the practice to have some type of electronic medical record or patient management system, as the patient data needs to be stored in a data repository then retrieved by the patient portal. While lauding its ease-of-use, some physicians note that it is har…

Security

Health care providers in the US are bound to comply with HIPAA regulations. These regulations specify what patient information must be held in confidence. Something as seemingly trivial as a name is viewed by HIPAA as protected health information. For this reason, security has always been a top concern for the industry when dealing with the adoption of patient portals. While there may be systems that are not HIPAA compliant, certainly most patient and practice portals are se…

History

Internet portal technology has been in common use since the 1990s. The financial industry has been particularly adept at using the Internet to grant individual users access to personal information. Possibly because of the strictness of HIPAA regulations, or the lack of financial incentives for the health care providers, the adoption of patient portals has lagged behind other market segments.

Future

E-visits (remote use of medical services) may soon become one of the most commonly used options of patient portals. The most likely demographic for uptake of e-visits are patients who live in remote rural areas, far from clinical services. An Internet session would be much cheaper and more convenient than traveling a long distance, especially for simple questions or minor medical complaints.

Vendors

Some vendors, such as athenahealth, Epic Systems and Cerner offer patient portals as one module of a complete Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. Other vendors, such as Allscripts and Medfusion, offer patient portals that can be integrated with any EHR.
Recent market surveys have highlighted best of breed, or applications that excel at one or two functions, are losing ground to portals provided by large vendors. While best of breed portals ar…