Endwell Family Patient Portal (2024)

FAQs

Why do some patients fail to participate in the use of the patient portal? ›

Factors contributing to patient's resistance to opt-in include a lack of perceived need and concerns about privacy and security. The AMA reports that 57% of patients feel they do not need to use patient portals, indicating a knowledge gap regarding portals and the use of this technology.

Patient portals can help you access medical records, set up appointments, communicate with your health care professional, and pay medical bills. Some portals are created exclusively for a hospital or clinic, but there are companies that offer solutions that multiple health care systems can use.

Once a patient creates an account and logs in, the portal interfaces with the EHR to retrieve the patient's personal health information. This information can include medical history, test results, and medications. Portal-based messaging offers the ability to message healthcare professionals directly.

Risk of data breaches and security concerns: Patient portals store sensitive health information, which could be vulnerable to data breaches if proper security measures are not in place.

The most common barriers to patient portal adoption are preference for in-person communication, not having a need for the patient portal, and feeling uncomfortable with computers, which are barriers that are modifiable and can be intervened upon.

In multivariable analysis, we found that nonusers were more likely to be male, be on Medicaid, lack a regular provider, and have less than a college education, compared to users. Similar disparities existed in who reported being offered access to a portal, with nonwhites also less likely to report being offered access.

Understanding MyChart messaging

Multiple members of your care team may view MyChart messages in order to get an appropriate and efficient response; this may include nurses or advance practice clinicians other than your primary care provider (PCP).

About 3 in 5 individuals nationwide reported they were offered and accessed their online medical record or patient portal in 2022 — this represents a 50 percent increase since 2020. Figure 1: Percent of individuals nationwide who were offered and accessed their online medical record or patient portal, 2014-2022.

In a meta-analysis, Neves et al¹⁸ found that patient portal use was associated with improved health outcomes for patients, as well as increased safety and quality of care.

How to make patient portals more accessible? ›

Optimize communication with patients via after-visit summaries and shared visit notes. Make the note easily accessible to patients on the patient portal. The key to successfully managing patient portal messages is using a team-based care model.

Nurses' role

Talk with all patients to increase awareness and explain portal features, including access to personal health information, lab results, immunization status, allergies, medications, and recent visits.

Remember there are many reasons why a healthcare provider will contact you after a medical test. If results are concerning, they may call you or have a receptionist call to schedule an appointment. 15 A healthcare provider may also call to assure you everything is okay or discuss any needed follow-up tests.

We examined patients' use of eight common portal features: messaging, medical advice message, lab tests/results, medication list, problem list, allergies, immunizations, and appointment details.

Patient portals and personal health records (PHRs) are two primary patient engagement technologies enabling patient data access. Still, it can be hard to distinguish between the two. These tools have a lot of overlapping features, leading some healthcare professionals to use the terms interchangeably.