CLEVELAND – In this era of consumer healthcare and a competitive provider landscape, having a patient portal is a priority for hospitals, according to Deborah Kohn, principal of Dak Systems Consulting.
Whether the trend continues is debatable.
Patient portals are still relatively new, but they have evolved to provide more complex administration and clinical services. “Patients want to get results,” Kohn said.
As hospitals define privacy policies and procedures for patient portals, Kohn said it is critical that privacy seals – akin to the seals of approval bestowed by Good Housekeeping – be clearly visible on the home page. “You need to have full-blown disclosures all over the site and the ability to click to see those policies,” she said, “if hospitals want adoption and trust.”
Kohn cited the Cleveland Clinic, a not-for-profit, multi-specialty academic medical center with 1,800 physicians, as having a model patient portal.
Joe Turk, director of IT for the e-Cleveland Clinic, said the organization’s patient portal is an extension of its electronic medical record, which was implemented in early 2000.
He listed the following value-added benefits of EMRs: all of a patient’s medical information is in one place; tools can be layered over the EMR to enable patients to interact with their physicians; and common transactions such as appointment scheduling, prescription renewals and reports can be easily enabled from the system.
The Cleveland Clinic piloted its patient portal in 2003, with a big push in 2005 to drive its 5.2 million patients to its portal. The rollout began with primary care and then moved to clinical specialties.
Turk said the clinic has approximately 25 percent to 40 percent penetration across various clinical areas. “The numbers of people are growing; we’re expanding features and we’re still rolling out,” he said. Satisfaction surveys and focus groups have revealed overall satisfaction with its portals, he added.
Turk said hospitals seeking to create patient portals should start with a pilot initiative, refine the portal before trying it on a larger number of people and continuously add features such as messaging and alerting.
Holly Miller, MD, vice president and chief medical information officer for University Hospitals in Cleveland, has a different take on patient portals.
Miller, who used to be with the Cleveland Clinic, believes that the industry should empower consumers and provide them with relevant information through personal health records. Patient portals are merely tethered PHRs, she said, designed to keep consumers tied to a particular hospital because the information is not portable.
“Not only is the record tethered, but the patient is, too,” she said. “Also, patient portals are a reflection of an organization’s electronic medical record system.”
While several models exist, Miller advocates for the Markel PHR model, which is controlled by the patient; private and secure; lifelong; portable; transparent with regard to provider quality and, most importantly, interoperable with all health information systems.
Miller said patient surveys show they want services such as direct appointment scheduling; online reminders for appointments, prescription renewals and health maintenance; pre-visit questionnaires; health data graphing and automated release of results.
Jonathan Teich, MD, attending physician in emergency medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and chief medical informatics officer at Elsevier, added his own list of must-haves for patient portals – health record, decision support, good reference information and transaction capability.
Teich stressed that healthcare organizations can’t merely push data to the patient. “For data to be useful, it has to be accompanied by decision support,” he said.
Although patient portals, which were initially designed for marketing, may not attract new patients, it’s a way of building patient loyalty.
Whether that’s a good thing is up to the patient.
Vendor List
Bond Technologies
Company contact for patient portal: Miguel Echarte, 813.264.5951, mecharte@bondclinician.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide? Patients are able to quickly access their healthcare information from home, update daily logs (diabetes, prenatal or a multitude of custom), and complete pre-visit questionnaires.
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? Patients are able to request appointments, referrals and Rx refills. They are also able to access patient information, modify insurance and demographic information, as well as communicate with the office. Patients are able to complete a pre-visit questionnaire with clinically guided questions that can be reviewed by the office staff prior to the visit.
Koshis – Healthcare Solutions
Company contact for patient portal: Aju Koshy, 888.567.4471 ext. 701,
sales@koshis.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide?
Customized based on request
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? Physician finder, patient pre-registration, online appointment scheduling, medication refill request, secure patient physician messaging, online bill payment and patient education, external physician portal for online referrals, patient satisfaction surveys, physician access to portal, employee access to portal and content management system.
Kryptiq Corp.
Company contact for patient portal: Tyler Blitz, 503.906.6300, tblitz@kryptiq.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide? The information available to patients through the Connect IQ Patient Portal is secure message communication history with the provider, personal medical record summary, patient demographics, health conditions (problem list with diagnoses), medications, allergies, insurance information, preferred pharmacies, advance directives and emergency contacts.
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? Connect IQ Patient Portal provides online forms (configurable forms allow data to be imported to existing systems), personal information update, medication renewal request, referral request, appointment request, patient questions and integration with existing systems (PM and EHR).
MedPlexus Inc.
Company contact for patient portal: Prabhakar Muppidi, 408.990.9008, info@medplexus.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide? Lab results and patient summary, which includes current medications, allergies, diagnosis, family history and risk factors, and social history.
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? Appointments (scheduling, canceling and history of appointments), patient demographics, patient insurance information, patient account statements (view statements and make online payments), prescription refills and secure communications with clinic or physician.
Medseek Inc.
Company contact for patient portal: David Levin, 205.306.0410, david.levin@medseek.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide? Medseek maintains a library of more than 130 interfaces to the most common clinical and administrative information systems such as Siemens, MEDITECH, Epic, Cerner, McKesson, CPSI, GE/IDX, Eclipsys and more.
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? Medseek maintains a library of more than 130 interfaces to the most common clinical and administrative information systems such as Siemens, MEDITECH, Epic, Cerner, McKesson, CPSI, GE/IDX, Eclipsys and more.
NextGen Healthcare Information Systems Inc.
Company contact for patient portal: sales@nextgen.com or Duane Peck, 215.657.7010, dpeck@nextgen.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide? Virtually any data that has been collected within NextGen EMR.
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? Updating demographic and insurance information; requesting documents from the practice; completing registration/enrollment and other forms or patient surveys.
RemedyMD
Company contact for patient portal: Holly Holm, 801.733.3364, hholm@remedymd.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide? Patients can track their nutritional intake, weight, exercise, blood pressure and blood glucose levels in myHealthManager’s comprehensive online journal. Patients can also view graphs of these data trended over time, to illustrate progress and make patterns actionable to reach their goals.
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? myHealthManager complements a physician’s EHR by offering the patient a real-time window into their practice, syncing their daily and historical health input with their encounter notes. With a dynamic instant messaging system and other critical patient interaction modules,
myHealthManager provides patients and practices with a unique set of secure, online tools that encourage patients to take active part in managing and improving their own health. With myHealthManager, a physician’s patients can register with their office online before their first appointment and expedite standard forms; save a physician’s staff phone time by communicating with them as needed through secure, online messaging; record personal health goals in customizable categories such as weight, nutrition and exercise; and receive specific reminders, tasks, and calendar events from the physician to facilitate compliance with their health program. Patients can record their comprehensive health history through a series of online documents that are easily customizable by their practice. Entered directly by the patient, these structured data are immediately incorporated into the patient’s EHR chart for your review at the point-of-care, and available for reference by the patient through the myHealthManager portal.
Wellogic
Company contact for patient portal: Max Reverman, vice president, sales and business development, 617.621.9775 ext. 360, max@wellogic.com
What medical record information does your patient portal provide? Patient demographics; patient blood type; major illnesses, visits and procedures, with dates; history of immunizations, allergies, chronic diseases and illnesses in the patient’s family; a list of patient’s medications, dosages, and usage history; results of tests and screenings; and disease management data.
What administrative services does your patient portal provide? It allows patients to pay bills and look up billing statements; view insurance information; view auditing records, allowing them to see who has looked at their health data; review and update their data sharing preferences across the community; share information with family and caregivers; review and update demographics and insurance; schedule appointments and receive appointment reminders; securely message physicians and staff; view health reminders (proactive alerts for routine tests and check-ups); submit prescription refills and renewal requests; register online; request documents or forms; view important news within their healthcare community; and view relevant, up-to-date health information and care instructions.