Benefits And Challenges Of The Patient Portal
The benefits of patient portals are many, but here’s some of the ones you need to be aware of. 1. Patient portals are efficient Patient portals allow you and your office staff to quickly deliver lab tests and confirm appointments without repeated phone calls. 2. Patient portals improve communication
Of patient portal benefits and challenges, however, probably the biggest concern is the security of a patient’s sensitive medical data. Your office cannot simply set up a free website and expect patients to allow their medical data to be posted there! But good news: patient portals are safe.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act imposes pressure on health care organizations to qualify for “Meaningful Use”. It is assumed that portals should increase patient participation in medical decisions, but whether or not the use of portals improves outcomes remains to be seen.
Open in a separate window Innovation: Patient Portal Barriers Lack of perceived usefulness, lack of accessibility, and guaranteeing privacy and securitywere identified as barriers for portal implementation.
The truth is, there are a lot of benefits to using a patient portal for providers.Better Patient Communication. ... Streamline Patient Registration and Administrative Tasks. ... Greater Focus on Patient Care. ... Better Patient-Physician Relationships. ... Improve Clinical Outcomes. ... Optimize Medical Office Workflow.
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.
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.
Burying lab results or not offering access to clinician notes will likely keep patients from seeing the utility of the portal. Even if providers offer this health data, making it difficult for patients to navigate to it will reduce the utility in the technology.
4 Pros and Cons of Digital Patient Health Data AccessPro: Patients enjoy digital data access.Con: Complicated health info causes concern for patients, docs.Pro: Patients can review info for medical errors.Con: Clinician notes raise patient-provider relationship concerns.
The reason why most patients do not want to use their patient portal is because they see no value in it, they are just not interested. The portals do not properly incentivize the patient either intellectually (providing enough data to prove useful) or financially.
9 Effective Ways to Encourage Patients to Use Patient PortalsFill out forms.Pay bills online.View lab results.Review doctor's notes.Schedule appointments.Receive billing statements.Request prescription refills.Check benefits and coverage.More items...
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.
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.
Four of those factors positively affect patients' intention to use: internet access, perceived usefulness, facilitating conditions, and internet use. On the other hand, there was no effect of three factors on intention to use: ethnicity, sex, and health status.
There are numerous potential benefits to PHRs, including improved patient-provider relationships, increased patient empowerment, and enhanced care safety, efficiency, coordination, and quality. However, privacy, security, cost, and adoption issues have been significant barriers to implementation.
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.
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.”.
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:
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, ...
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.".
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:
For family practice, messages generally go right to the provider. For specialists, who tend to be out of the office more often, messages go to the nurses or other staff for triage. To facilitate communication, PHMG developed a template for common messages, such as delivery of lab results.
With the introduction of electronic health records (EHRs), electronic medical records (EMRs), and medical device app development, patient portals are used increasingly by healthcare organizations of various sizes and specialities.
Patient portals started after the introduction of Electronic Health Records. The first EHRs, which would eventually come packed up with patient portals, started developing in the 1960s.
Patient portals are designed to help patients securely view their health data, consult a healthcare provider, schedule their appointments, and do more to be active participants in their health care process.
By providing easily accessible health information, a patient portal gives considerable benefits to both patients and doctors. One of the remarkable benefits of a patient portal is patient engagement, which allows patients to actively engage in their healthcare.
There are two main types of patient portals: an integrated service and a stand-alone system. Both are web-based tools, so let’s learn about their specifics:
The implementation of patient portals involves different steps to be followed- from research to final implementation and execution of them as a system. Here are six steps to implement a patient portal:
Organizations must be aware of patient portals regulations before they introduce one within their system.
When patients cannot communicate in real time, providers can miss opportunities to identify nonadherence. Thus, there is heavy focus on designing portals and apps similar to MyMeds, which incorporates bidirectional communication between providers and patients.
Mobile health (mHealth) is a means of providing health services or information via portals or applications (apps) on wireless devices, such as smartphones or tablets. Patient portals are secure websites that help patients access their health information at their convenience. Many patient portals are mobile enabled via a web-based platform ...
Communication generally takes the form of secure messaging such as live chat or e-mail among patients and providers , including primary care and specialist physicians, pharmacists, and many others.
Many patient portals are mobile enabled via a web-based platform and are therefore considered a form of mHealth. Patient-focused mHealth apps—software or programs stored directly on the mobile device—can provide an opportunity for patient-initiated health or disease management.
It’s a disadvantage of both the provider and patient when clients decide not to use a patient portal. Patients are missing out on the potential benefits available to them. Providers also need to spend more time going over information with the patient that they could just access on the portal.
The AMA also says that security concerns are the reason why 22% of people aren’t taking advantage of these services. These concerns were more common in patients over 40 years old.
There’s always the risk of confusion when using a new online platform. Trying to learn all the functionalities can take some time. This is why some accounts offer new user tours to guide the person through all of the features.
Other disadvantages of patient portals include alienation and health disparities. Alienation between patient and provider occurs for those who don’t access these tools. Sometimes, this is due to health disparities if a person doesn’t have a method for using them.
With each of the disadvantages of patient portals that I already mentioned comes unintended extra work for the provider. Doctors want their clients to use this service they offer but opt-in rates are still low among patients.
Patient portals are set up to be a benefit for clients. When people opt-in to using these services, they can use quick on-demand features to make their health experience better. For instance, it’s easier to obtain medical records, immunizations, prescription information, and other details.