The implications of healthcare reform and the Affordable Care Act have created a boon for information technology professionals. Hospitals, clinics, outpatient facilities, and other sites of care are mandated to implement electronic medical record technology for the management of patient data. The goals are to increase interdisciplinary collaboration, improve patient safety, eliminate redundancy in medical testing, and facilitate the billing process.
Beyond sharing records among physicians, specialists, nursing teams, pharmacists, laboratory technicians and administrative staff, there is also the opportunity for patients to have access to their personal data. More and more clinical information systems vendors are offering patient-centric health records applications, designed to engage today’s technology savvy healthcare consumer.
ePHR & Patient Portals
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) defines the ePHR, the electronic personal health record, as “a universally accessible, layperson comprehensible, lifelong tool for managing relevant health information, promoting health maintenance and assisting with chronic disease management via an interactive, common data set of electronic health information and e-health tools.”
An ePHR can only be accessed via a secure password-protected patient portal. Once inside the portal, patients can view their laboratory test results, schedule appointments, pay their bills, e-mail their healthcare providers, and renew prescriptions. They may also be served a series of relevant articles and tracking tools based on their individual health concerns, such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, obesity, diabetes, and other chronic conditions.
In the “perfect world” scenario, patients are empowered to use this information to better manage their healthcare needs and improve their overall quality of life.
Adoption of Patient Portal Technology
Healthcare reform legislation begins to call for patient use of online portals in 2014. The minimum requirement is for 100 percent of all eligible physicians to have at least five percent of patients actively using the technology. Although this appears to be a simple goal on the surface, many physicians have not yet embraced this technology – making it unlikely that their patients are using the tools.
In fact, as recently as 2011, a study conducted by Health Affairs discovered that over sixty percent of physicians had no experience in using patient portals to interact with their patients. Only forty percent of those surveyed expressed interest and willingness to do. A greater number of rural physicians embraced the concept, perhaps due to previous experience using telemedicine to meet the challenges of distance and inaccessibility.
Some patients have been slow to adopt the technology, based on security and privacy concerns. Others have found that the convenience of the portal’s offerings doesn’t necessarily live up to the promise. The exception, of course, is the younger population of patients and physicians – which has an insatiable appetite for online communication and e-commerce of all kinds.
The Problem with Portals
Chilmark Research, a firm that analyzes healthcare information technology adoption and use, has uncovered a number of issues that cast a pall over patient portals. Some of these findings include:
- Lack of consistency in what type of data is available to patients.
- Inability for patients to export their personal records to another platform.
- No option for patients to enter their own data or notes.
- Little support for convenience features like scheduling and refills.
- Cumbersome, non-user friendly portal entry and navigation.
- Belief that the ePHR and patient portal are marketing gimmicks, and not serious technology.
While technology adoption has been studied by Chilmark and others, there is very little research regarding the use of patient portals and their overall impact on positive patient outcomes. This also makes the technology an easy target for detractors.
However, much to the dismay of some patients and physicians, patient portals are here to stay. Younger patients and newly minted physicians will lead the charge into the future, buoyed by healthcare reform laws and clinical information systems companies that have large technology investments at stake.
Laura Mingo writes about topics of interest to higher education students. In particular, she covers IT careers and new technology as well as the latest trends driving the IT industry. Her aim is to empower university students in pursuit of an online computer information systems degree. Co-written by Casey Haslem.