Patient-Faqs

tsai informatics patient portal

by Dr. Aniyah Hickle Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago
image

Do patient requests for nonclinical information and functions affect portal development?

Health care organizations may view patient requests of nonclinical information and functions such as electronic games [ 18, 19, 24, 30] as fringe requests that could raise developmental costs. However, granting these requests may improve portal adoption and use and overall patient satisfaction.

What are the benefits of a patient portal?

Patient portals can provide secure, online access to personal health information such as medication lists, laboratory results, immunizations, allergies, and discharge information. They can also enable patient-provider communication using secure messaging, appointments and payment management, and prescription refill requests [2,3].

What are the outputs of patient portal implementation studies?

The literature explored some, but not all, potential outputs of patient portal implementations. Most of the studies assessed implementation of patient portals using interim outcomes such as user perceptions, and few studies addressed important objective outcomes such as length of stay, morbidity, or mortality [ 2, 4, 20, 54 ].

Do patient portals facilitate patient discovery of errors in electronic health records?

Several studies reported that patient portals facilitate patient discovery of errors in EMRs [ 24, 26, 30, 54 - 56 ]. Discussion in the literature of how patients could notify health care providers of such errors is lacking. Further research is needed to establish how patient-discovered errors are reported and to identify optimal reporting methods.

What are the inputs and outputs of a patient portal?

How does patient involvement improve quality of care?

Why are patient portals important?

How does EMR help patients?

How many articles are in the systematic search?

How does a patient portal improve patient engagement?

What are organizational factors in healthcare?

See 4 more

About this website

image

Patient Portals Facilitating Engagement With Inpatient Electronic ...

While the evidence is currently immature, patient portals have demonstrated benefit by enabling the discovery of medical errors, improving adherence to medications, and providing patient-provider communication, etc. High-quality studies are needed to fully understand, improve, and evaluate their imp …

Patient Portals and Patient Engagement: A State of the Science ... - PubMed

Current research has demonstrated that patients' interest and ability to use patient portals is strongly influenced by personal factors such age, ethnicity, education level, health literacy, health status, and role as a caregiver. Health care delivery factors, mainly provider endorsement and patient …

10 Benefits Of Patient Portals You Can’t Miss For Your Practice

These 10 benefits of patient portals may have you scrambling to make sure you have one in place for your medical practice!

Patient portals - an online tool for your health

With a patient portal: You can access your secure personal health information and be in touch with your provider's office 24 hours a day. You do not need to wait for office hours or returned phone calls to have basic issues resolved.

Patient portals and health apps: Pitfalls, promises, and what one might ...

Acknowledgements. Dr. Singh is supported by the VA Health Services Research and Development Service (CRE 12-033; Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers USA 14-274), the VA National Center for Patient Safety and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (R01HS022087 and R21HS023602).

What are the inputs and outputs of a patient portal?

The inputs are the material (eg, hardware and software) and nonmaterial (eg, leadership) components that facilitate or impair the establishment or use of the portal. Processes include the interactions of the users with the portal. Outputs comprise the results of the implementation or the use of the portal. Through the analysis, we identified 14 themes within these three categories, shown in Textbox 1.

How does patient involvement improve quality of care?

Promoting patient involvement in health care delivery may lead to improved quality and safety of care [14,15] by enabling patients to spot and report errors in EMRs, for example [6]. Some patients recognize the role of patient portals in their health care, reporting satisfaction with the ability to communicate with their health care teams and perform tasks such as requesting prescription refills conveniently [3,16]. Portal use may reduce in-person visits, visits to emergency departments, and patient-provider telephone conversations [3,8-10,12,16]. Despite the potential of portals, already used in the ambulatory setting for some time, implementation in the inpatient setting has only recently gathered momentum [17-19]. The inpatient setting presents additional challenges for implementing patient portals [18,20]. Clinical conditions leading to hospitalization are often acute and the amount of medical information generated during this time can be extensive, which may overwhelm patients [20] and challenge information technology to rapidly display this information.

Why are patient portals important?

While the evidence is currently immature, patient portals have demonstrated benefit by enabling the discovery of medical errors, improving adherence to medications, and providing patient-provider communication, etc. High-quality studies are needed to fully understand, improve, and evaluate their impact.

How does EMR help patients?

Hospitals and other health care organizations can facilitate patient access to their EMR information through patient portals. Patient portals can provide secure, online access to personal health information [1] such as medication lists, laboratory results, immunizations, allergies, and discharge information [2]. They can also enable patient-provider communication using secure messaging, appointments and payment management, and prescription refill requests [2,3].

How many articles are in the systematic search?

The systematic search identified 58 articles for inclusion. The inputs category was addressed by 40 articles, while the processes and outputs categories were addressed by 36 and 46 articles, respectively: 47 articles addressed multiple themes across the three categories, and 11 addressed only a single theme. Nineteen articles had high- to very high-quality, 21 had medium quality, and 18 had low- to very low-quality. Findings in the inputs category showed wide-ranging portal designs; patients’ privacy concerns and lack of encouragement from providers were among portal adoption barriers while information access and patient-provider communication were among facilitators. Several methods were used to train portal users with varying success. In the processes category, sociodemographic characteristics and medical conditions of patients were predictors of portal use; some patients wanted unlimited access to their EMRs, personalized health education, and nonclinical information; and patients were keen to use portals for communicating with their health care teams. In the outputs category, some but not all studies found patient portals improved patient engagement; patients perceived some portal functions as inadequate but others as useful; patients and staff thought portals may improve patient care but could cause anxiety in some patients; and portals improved patient safety, adherence to medications, and patient-provider communication but had no impact on objective health outcomes.

How does a patient portal improve patient engagement?

Patient portals may enhance patient engagement by enabling patients to access their electronic medical records (EMRs) and facilitating secure patient-provider communication.

What are organizational factors in healthcare?

Organizational factors: culture of a health care organization; decisions and actions it takes when an initial consideration is made to implement a patient portal

How do I use a Patient Portal?from medlineplus.gov

If your provider offers a patient portal, you will need a computer and internet connection to use it. Follow the instructions to register for an account. Once you are in your patient portal, you can click the links to perform basic tasks. You can also communicate with your provider's office in the message center.

Why are patient portals important?from electronichealthreporter.com

Patient portals provide an opportunity for healthcare providers to offer patients that individual experience and to support their efforts at managing their own care, enabled by automation and empowered by the availability of data. If providers can secure PHI and provide the confidence consumers and providers need, patient portals will become a useful tool for healthcare transformation.

Why are portals important for healthcare?from electronichealthreporter.com

While patient portals add risk, they also confer many benefits to healthcare organizations, including enhanced patient-provider communication and empowerment of patients. Some studies have found that portals can also enable better outcomes for patients. These benefits are behind the HIPAA privacy rule’s “right of access,” which allows individuals to examine and obtain a copy of their PHI. Meaningful use requirements also require eligible professionals to exchange secure emails with at least 5 percent of their unique patients. Since portals are an ideal way to meet this requirement, organizations seeking to comply with Stage 2 criteria have an incentive to adopt them.

How can a company be a successful player in the healthcare arena?from electronichealthreporter.com

A recent blog by Dan Munro claims that, “To be a successful player in the healthcare arena, a company needs to be in the ‘behavioral change’ business. Boosting adherence, bending the cost curve and shifting from treatment to prevention will require dramatic shifts in patient behavior. Customizing the individual experience is key to improved outcomes.”

How to ensure your data is secure?from electronichealthreporter.com

Implement user authentication to ensure your data is truly secure – For example, in some patient portals, after displaying one patient’s record, a different patient’s record could be displayed simply by editing the URL in the browser.

Why is it important to have an incident response plan?from electronichealthreporter.com

Have an incident response plan in place – When a breach does happen, determining the root cause can be difficult and time consuming. This is why it’s important to implement incident response plans. Knowing exactly when a security incident became a “breach” and whether it was truly due to malicious outsiders or to inside individuals is critical to an organization’s ability to respond to and prevent future breaches.

What is the importance of a comprehensive security program?from electronichealthreporter.com

Beyond encryption, organizations need to have a comprehensive security program that, in addition to addressing the required elements in HIPAA and meaningful use, includes a solid understanding of the organization’s data security risks and contingency plans in case of a breach.

What are the inputs and outputs of a patient portal?

The inputs are the material (eg, hardware and software) and nonmaterial (eg, leadership) components that facilitate or impair the establishment or use of the portal. Processes include the interactions of the users with the portal. Outputs comprise the results of the implementation or the use of the portal. Through the analysis, we identified 14 themes within these three categories, shown in Textbox 1.

How does patient involvement improve quality of care?

Promoting patient involvement in health care delivery may lead to improved quality and safety of care [14,15] by enabling patients to spot and report errors in EMRs, for example [6]. Some patients recognize the role of patient portals in their health care, reporting satisfaction with the ability to communicate with their health care teams and perform tasks such as requesting prescription refills conveniently [3,16]. Portal use may reduce in-person visits, visits to emergency departments, and patient-provider telephone conversations [3,8-10,12,16]. Despite the potential of portals, already used in the ambulatory setting for some time, implementation in the inpatient setting has only recently gathered momentum [17-19]. The inpatient setting presents additional challenges for implementing patient portals [18,20]. Clinical conditions leading to hospitalization are often acute and the amount of medical information generated during this time can be extensive, which may overwhelm patients [20] and challenge information technology to rapidly display this information.

Why are patient portals important?

While the evidence is currently immature, patient portals have demonstrated benefit by enabling the discovery of medical errors, improving adherence to medications, and providing patient-provider communication, etc. High-quality studies are needed to fully understand, improve, and evaluate their impact.

How does EMR help patients?

Hospitals and other health care organizations can facilitate patient access to their EMR information through patient portals. Patient portals can provide secure, online access to personal health information [1] such as medication lists, laboratory results, immunizations, allergies, and discharge information [2]. They can also enable patient-provider communication using secure messaging, appointments and payment management, and prescription refill requests [2,3].

How many articles are in the systematic search?

The systematic search identified 58 articles for inclusion. The inputs category was addressed by 40 articles, while the processes and outputs categories were addressed by 36 and 46 articles, respectively: 47 articles addressed multiple themes across the three categories, and 11 addressed only a single theme. Nineteen articles had high- to very high-quality, 21 had medium quality, and 18 had low- to very low-quality. Findings in the inputs category showed wide-ranging portal designs; patients’ privacy concerns and lack of encouragement from providers were among portal adoption barriers while information access and patient-provider communication were among facilitators. Several methods were used to train portal users with varying success. In the processes category, sociodemographic characteristics and medical conditions of patients were predictors of portal use; some patients wanted unlimited access to their EMRs, personalized health education, and nonclinical information; and patients were keen to use portals for communicating with their health care teams. In the outputs category, some but not all studies found patient portals improved patient engagement; patients perceived some portal functions as inadequate but others as useful; patients and staff thought portals may improve patient care but could cause anxiety in some patients; and portals improved patient safety, adherence to medications, and patient-provider communication but had no impact on objective health outcomes.

How does a patient portal improve patient engagement?

Patient portals may enhance patient engagement by enabling patients to access their electronic medical records (EMRs) and facilitating secure patient-provider communication.

What are organizational factors in healthcare?

Organizational factors: culture of a health care organization; decisions and actions it takes when an initial consideration is made to implement a patient portal

image
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9