There is a massive growth in patient portal throughout the world that can be attributed to federal mandates, the growing adoption of a patient-centric approach for healthcare services delivery, the increase in EHR adoption, and the likeability of a patient portal for the elderly patients.
Patient portals are altering the way in which patients access their personal health information, their prescriptions, their medical history, and carry out tasks like clearing out their queries about their health through emails to the medical assistants, renewing their prescriptions, scheduling their appointments with medical healthcare providers, and much more.
The elderly who do not like being at the doctor's clinic for every minute problem, can easily make an appointment through the portal and access their information any time as the portal is up and running any time of the day. This way of accessing healthcare services is definitely better than ringing to a busy reception, making an appointment over the phone, traveling to the doctor's surgery and waiting for hours in the sitting room for one's turn for check-up or counseling.
Even more advanced patient portals are changing the healthcare industry's landscape by allowing for these features too-
- Exchanging secure email with the healthcare provider's team
- Schedule non-urgent appointments
- Request prescription refills
- Update contact information
- Check for benefits and coverage
- Download and fill-in forms
- Make payments
- View educational materials to enhance knowledge
Patient portals are changing the patient-provider relationship for better, empowering patients, provide care and services between patient's physical visits, and, most importantly, resulting in a better patient outcome.
What is the driving force and fuel in this increasing demand for patient portals is that the patients want the convenience of taking care of routine tasks on their mobile or PC systems.
Healthcare providers must first implement a patient portal that is easy-to-use, safe, secure, and fast. Then, through a comprehensive training, their staff must be trained to make use of the system themselves, and teach the patients to make use of it as well. Training the staff to use it properly and educating the patients when and how the portal needs to be used is the hardest pieces of the puzzle.
But, once the clinical team is excited with the intention of engaging with the patients in a more meaningful way, the patients will follow too.
This extra time with the patients during the initial introduction of the system will save those hours of frustration once the treatment begins, and it is more of an investment of time and money for the providers.
Patients are showing interest in this newfound power that they have in their own healthcare services. The simplicity of carrying out redundant tasks like booking an appointment, checking laboratory results, accessing medical history, ordering a repeat prescription, and even bringing the slightest change in his records to the attention of his medical care provider are all adding up to lead to patient's satisfaction with his healthcare provider.
This is an era of growth that has changed how doctors and patients interact and has led to a keen interest in the patient regarding his own health and betterment. This is just the beginning of how healthcare is being shaped up by technologies.
Not far away is the day and age when doctors will get patient's data through apps and devices connected to the Internet, allowing them to detect warning signs of illnesses and treat injuries remotely.
Patient portals are the onset of the dubbed 'connected future' and are saving valuable time, driving value for providers and healthcare organizations.
