New data shows that although 89 percent of organizations host patient portal access, they don’t educate patients on how to use the tools.
Eighty-nine percent of hospitals offer patient data access through a patient portal, but they aren’t giving patients actionable information about how to use the tools, according to new data from Indiana University (IU) and the Regenstrief Institute.
Much has been made of patient portals, or tools that enable patient data access, secure messaging with providers, and in some cases prescription refill requests and appointment scheduling. Patient portal use has been a key component of several iterations of the meaningful use program and MACRA, with core incentive payments tied to patient activation on the tool.
The challenge, however, is that not a lot of patients are actually using these tools. While most organizations have adopted the patient portal and a sizeable portion of patients have enrolled on the tool, active patient use has left much to be desired.
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In an analysis of 200 acute care organizations across the country, IU and Regenstrief Institute researchers confirmed these trends. Eighty-nine percent of the organizations included in the study have a patient portal, and two-thirds of them offer secure messaging over the portal.
Nonetheless, limited instructions about how to use the portal is keeping patients from using the tool in any meaningful way, the researchers said.
More than half — 58 percent — of patient portals lacked any specific instructions about how patients can use secure messaging functions, for example. Although many organizations offered general guidelines, they were limited to outlining the capability to send and receive messages with staff members. Few organizations outlined what types of messages would be appropriate to send using the portal.
The researchers did point out that most organizations cautioned patients that secure messages would not be appropriate for addressing medical emergencies, although 23 percent of them only included the warning in their “Terms and Conditions,” which very few patients actually read.
And even when organizations did offer instructions about how to use the patient portal, most of these messages used complex language that may have exceeded a patient’s health or regular literacy levels.
“We found that many instructional materials had more of a medicolegal focus, rather than a focus on the patient as a user,” Joy L. Lee, PhD, MS, Regenstrief research scientist and lead author of the paper, said in a statement. “This research indicates there is room for improvement when it comes to educating patients on the portals, especially related to secure messaging. The guidance that exists includes a lot of ‘don’ts’, but not very many ‘dos’. This makes it difficult for patients to properly utilize and benefit from the service.”
Some best practices for secure messaging include setting expectations about response times, discussing the types of requests patients can make using secure messaging, and being honest about who responds to secure messages – a provider or a triage nurse.
These findings come after providers across the country invested heavily in patient engagement technologies and patient portals. First as a part of meaningful use and then as a part of MACRA, medical professionals across the country felt financial pressure to install these tools for their patients.
Now that these tools are in place, organizations likely aren’t seeing a good return on investment, Lee said, because they are not taking the time to help patients understand how to use the patient portal.
“Hospitals and healthcare systems have invested a lot of money in patient portals, but the investment won’t pay off for them or the people they provide care for if patients are confused about how to use the portals or don’t understand how to get the most out of the tool,” Lee explained.
Going forward, individual clinicians should integrate patient portal guidance into their clinical workflows. In addition to explaining how to log into the portal and confirming the portal’s security, clinicians should outline how patients can and should use the patient portal, according to Michael Weiner, MD, MPH, a senior author on the study.
“Hospitals and health systems are expanding their uses and provision of online resources, including patient portals,” Weiner, who is also associate director of Regenstrief Institute’s William M. Tierney Center for Health Services Research, said. “Health systems need to be active participants in engaging patients, providing them with more and better information, and clarifying expectations. As guidance is developed at a system level, clinicians can also guide conversations with their patients about how to use messaging tools.”
Source: Patient Engagement Hit