The Effectiveness Of Integrating A Patient Portal For Engagement

As we transition into a more digital globe, we realize that most of our day-to-day activities are in the digital realm. Schools, hospitals, organizations, and businesses use the Internet to access personal information and gain relevant insights. Developers create portals as they facilitate collaboration, accessibility, and better communication with one another. According to Pew Research Center, there has been at least a five percent increase in adult internet usage in the last several years, and it is no surprise to see why. If you are wondering about the effectiveness of integrating a patient portal for engagement, you have come to the right place. Studies have shown that portal users' benefits are lower disease-related stress, increased knowledge about their disease, and increased ratings of their current health. Here is a guide to understanding more about patient portals and patient engagement.

What Is an Online Patient Portal?

A patient portal is a protected website that lets patients interact with their personal, financial, and health data. It is a crucial component of a comprehensive patient engagement strategy that allows the patient to message and communicate through email, text, phone, and the web. Patient portals and patient engagement will enable them to stay in touch with their caregivers or medical doctors. Patients can obtain their medication, get test results, access and update their personal information, schedule appointments, receive appointment reminders, and read educational materials through portals.

A patient portal can help increase patient engagement, which may be a demand from the patient. Health records are no exception to the growing patients’ expectation to access any information online. A patient portal's ease of use and accessibility may increase patient satisfaction. Research demonstrates that patients more engaged in their care are more likely to be healthy and satisfied. Healthcare businesses can rapidly and securely improve patient communication with the proper patient portal services and technology.

Benefits of Patient Portals

Patient portals are a frequently discussed topic of medical technology, but how can medical professionals or providers use them to improve patient engagement? A 2016 AHA report shows that 92 percent of hospitals utilized patient portals. A 2016 survey shows that 58 percent of healthcare professionals communicate with their patients through mobile portals. About 20 percent of patients use their portals to communicate with their doctors during shared decision-making. With more people wanting healthcare at their convenience, patient portals can help in various ways. Here are some more benefits of patient portals and patient engagement.

Transmit and Receive Secure Messages

Thanks to this effective communication method, you can avoid long phone discussions, allowing patients to ask questions between appointments. Your clinical team is more productive thanks to the patient portal's ability for patients to schedule appointments and seek medication refills directly. This allows them to continue assisting you with patients with the most urgent care needs and issues.

Share Important Information

Use the patient portal to distribute information such as clinical reports or educational resources. One of the significant burdens on doctors' time today is eased by the ability to electronically obtain and disseminate patient information swiftly. You can exclusively focus on providing excellent care to your patients rather than worrying about what needs to be in a patient's document or report.

Build Loyalty

You can use secure messaging to maintain open lines of contact between doctors and patients, encouraging people to seek out the same medical professional in the future. Gaining a patient's loyalty provides apparent advantages for doctors, encourages care flexibility and makes the patient feel more satisfied and fulfilled. Outside scheduled sessions, ongoing interaction and communication encourage patients to feel cared for and stick with your clinic.

Promotion of Telemedicine

A patient portal can also lower the number of unnecessary visits from patients to your office, allowing you to concentrate more on those who need to see you. This could support telemedicine, which enables patients to communicate with you via messaging. For instance, the patient could ask you a question via the patient portal rather than making an appointment to see their doctor regarding a change in medication dosage. This option enables you to leave that appointment open for a patient who either needs immediate medical attention or whose illness requires in-person investigation and medication.

Simply Send Notices and Test Results to Patients Immediately and Securely

You may plan annual checkups with your patients and send appointment and payment reminders using a patient portal. Simplifying the scheduling process and ensuring that patients are constantly informed saves the patient and medical professionals time. Additionally, patients are no longer required to wait for their lab results. Instead, they could easily connect to their system and access their reports whenever needed.

Better Self-Pay Collections

By sending out personalized balance-due reminders via phone and "soft collection" messages through email, a practice's patient communication system can also increase patient responsibility collections, known as "self-pay," an increasing patient cost. An online patient portal can help accelerate and increase the volume of collections by making it more straightforward for patients to make payments online. Patients go online to check an e-statement and make a payment with only a few clicks, any time of day, 365 days a year.

How Can Providers Promote Patient Portal Use?

While the advantages of patient portals may seem alluring, they are ineffective if patients do not use them. As already mentioned, there is still room for patient adoption. According to some industry experts, it is primarily the provider's responsibility to increase the buy-in. To promote patient portal use, every clinician should discuss the advantages of the portal and promote adoption with each patient interaction.

Additionally, providers must be aware of specific patient populations' traits that affect patient portals' uptake. According to research, minorities embrace this technology at lesser rates than majority ethnic groups, potentially because they don’t have access to it or are not tech savvy.

Another noteworthy characteristic is user age. Many healthcare professionals make the mistake of assuming that just because their patients are older, they would not wish to utilize the portal. However, that may not be the case. Patients in their 60s are equally likely to use their portal as perhaps they are accustomed to the tools.

The Future of Patient Portals

Both portals and the tools used to access them are constantly changing. Remotely accessible devices that track vital signs, blood sugar levels, and heart rates help to integrate technology and human interaction. Patient portals might soon give way to frictionless technology with a tailored interface that includes the patient’s whole medical history. The portal could be more developed and improved through the use of natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and voice-activated digital assistants.

These improvements will revolutionize how patients interact with and use their health data through medical education and disease-specific design.

Build Your Patient Portals with Vicert

The perfect healthcare system that cures the world piece by piece is what Vicert develops and designs. Our engineers utilize their industry-specific knowledge to improve patient care, streamline business operations, and solve complex challenges. We offer various healthcare services, including cloud-based health s, patient portals, and patient engagement. We promise to create a digital healthcare service that best meets your needs. Contact us right away to learn more!