scholarly journals The Use of an Electronic Health Record Patient Portal to Access Diagnostic Test Results by Emergency Patients at an Academic Medical Center: Retrospective Study (Preprint)

Author(s):  
Brody Foster ◽  
Matthew David Krasowski

BACKGROUND Electronic health record (EHR) patient portals provide a means by which patients can access their health information, including diagnostic test results. Little is known about portal usage by emergency department (ED) patients. OBJECTIVE The study aimed to assess patient portal utilization by ED patients at an academic medical center using account activation rates along with the rates of access of diagnostic test results (laboratory results and radiology reports), analyzing the impact of age, gender, and self-reported patient race. METHODS This institutional review board–approved retrospective study was performed at a 60,000-visits-per-year university-based ED. We utilized EHR data reporting tools to examine EHR portal activation and utilization for all patients who had at least one ED encounter with one or more diagnostic tests performed between October 1, 2016, and October 1, 2017. The total dataset for laboratory testing included 208,635 laboratory tests on 25,361 unique patients, of which 9482 (37.39%) had active portal accounts. The total dataset for radiologic imaging included 23,504 radiology studies on 14,455 unique patients, of which 5439 (37.63%) had an active portal account. RESULTS Overall, 8.90% (18,573/208,635) of laboratory tests and 8.97% (2019/22,504) of radiology reports ordered in the ED were viewed in the patient portal. The highest rates of viewing of laboratory and radiology results were seen for those who were female, were aged 0 to 11 years (parent or guardian viewing by proxy) and 18 to 60 years, and self-reported their race as Caucasian or Asian. The lowest rates were for those who were teenagers, aged older than 81 years, African American/black, and Hispanic/Latino. Infectious disease, urinalysis, and pregnancy testing constituted the highest number of laboratory tests viewed. Magnetic resonance imaging reports were viewed at higher rates than computed tomography or x-ray studies (P<.001). Approximately half of all the diagnostic test results accessed by patients were reviewed within 72 hours of availability in the patient portal (laboratory results: 9904/18,573, 53.32% and radiology reports: 971/2019, 48.1%). On the other extreme, 19.9% (3701/18,573) of laboratory results and 31.6% (639/2019) of radiology reports were viewed more than 2 weeks after availability in the portal. CONCLUSIONS The data highlight the relatively low use of a patient portal by ED patients and existing disparities between patient groups. There can be wide lag time (months) between result/report availability and access by patients. Opportunities for improvement exist for both activation and more robust utilization of patient portals by ED patients.

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
MatthewD Krasowski ◽  
CalebV Grieme ◽  
Brian Cassady ◽  
NicholasR Dreyer ◽  
KarolynA Wanat ◽  
...  

JAMIA Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-488
Author(s):  
Bryan D Steitz ◽  
Joseph Isaac S Wong ◽  
Jared G Cobb ◽  
Brian Carlson ◽  
Gaye Smith ◽  
...  

Abstract Background and Objective Patient portal use has increased over the last two decades in response to consumer demand and government regulation. Despite growing adoption, few guidelines exist to direct successful implementation and governance. We describe the policies and procedures that have governed over a decade of continuous My Health at Vanderbilt (MHAV) patient portal use. Methods We examined MHAV usage data between May 2007 and November 2017. We classified patient portal activity into eight functional categories: Appointment, Billing, Document Access, Genetics, Health Result, Immunization, Medication, and Messaging. We describe our operating policies and measure portal uptake, patient account activity, and function use over time. Results By the end of the study period, there were 375 517 registered accounts. Policies made MHAV available to competent adults and adolescents 13 and over. Patients signed up for a limited access account online, which could be upgraded to a full-access account after identity verification. Patients could assign proxy accounts to family and caregivers, which permitted nonpatient access to select MHAV functions. Laboratory and radiology results were accessible via MHAV. Results were classified into three groups based on sensitivity, which govern the length of delay before results appeared in MHAV. Discussion and Conclusion Patient portals offer significant opportunity to engage patients in their healthcare. However, there remains a need to understand how policies can promote uptake and use. We anticipate that other institutions can apply concepts from our policies to support meaningful patient portal engagement.


JAMIA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer H LeLaurin ◽  
Oliver T Nguyen ◽  
Lindsay A Thompson ◽  
Jaclyn Hall ◽  
Jiang Bian ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective Disparities in adult patient portal adoption are well-documented; however, less is known about disparities in portal adoption in pediatrics. This study examines the prevalence and factors associated with patient portal activation and the use of specific portal features in general pediatrics. Materials and methods We analyzed electronic health record data from 2012 to 2020 in a large academic medical center that offers both parent and adolescent portals. We summarized portal activation and use of select portal features (messaging, records access and management, appointment management, visit/admissions summaries, and interactive feature use). We used logistic regression to model factors associated with patient portal activation among all patients along with feature use and frequent feature use among ever users (ie, ≥1 portal use). Results Among 52 713 unique patients, 39% had activated the patient portal, including 36% of patients aged 0–11, 41% of patients aged 12–17, and 62% of patients aged 18–21 years. Among activated accounts, ever use of specific features ranged from 28% for visit/admission summaries to 92% for records access and management. Adjusted analyses showed patients with activated accounts were more likely to be adolescents or young adults, white, female, privately insured, and less socioeconomically vulnerable. Individual feature use among ever users generally followed the same pattern. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that important disparities persist in portal adoption in pediatric populations, highlighting the need for strategies to promote equitable access to patient portals.


2017 ◽  
Vol 08 (03) ◽  
pp. 779-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Cronin ◽  
Sharon Davis ◽  
Ellen Yan ◽  
Gretchen Jackson ◽  
Bryan Steitz

SummaryBackground: Patient portal adoption has increased over the last two decades. Most research about patient portals has focused on adult populations in the primary care and medical specialty settings.Objective: We describe initial and long-term portal use by pediatric patients and their caregivers in a broadly deployed patient portal at an academic medical center.Methods: We analyzed portal usage for pediatric patients and their caregivers from 2008 to 2014. We recorded usage events with time stamps; user role defined as self, surrogate (i.e., parent or guardian), or delegate; and functions accessed. Usage events were grouped into sessions to calculate descriptive statistics by patient age, user role, and active use over time.Results: From 2008 to 2014, the number of portal accounts increased from 633 to 17,128. 15.9% of pediatric patients had their own account; 93.6%, a surrogate account; and 2.2% a delegate account. During the study period, 15,711 unique users initiated 493,753 sessions and accessed 1,491,237 functions. Most commonly used functions were secure messaging (accessed in 309,204 sessions; 62.6%); test results (174,239; 35.3%) and appointments (104,830; 21.2%). Function usage was greatest for patients ages 0-2 years (136,245 functions accessed; 23.1%) and 15-17 years (109,241;18.5%). Surrogate users conducted 83.2% of logins for adolescent patients. Portal accounts were actively used for < 1 year for 9,551 patients (55.8%), 1-2 years for 2,826 patients (16.5%), 2–3 years for 1,968 patients (11.5%) and over 3 years for 2,783 patients (16.3%).Conclusion: Pediatric patients and caregivers have avidly used messaging, test result, and appointment functions. The majority of access was done by surrogates. Adolescent portal usage increased with age. Most accounts for pediatric patients were only used actively for a few years, with peak usage for patients in early childhood and late adolescence.Citation: Steitz BD, Cronin RM, Davis SE, Yan Z, Jackson GP. Long-term Patterns of Patient Portal Use for Pediatric Patients at an Academic Medical Center. Appl Clin Inform 2017; 8: 779–793 https://doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2017-01-RA-0005


2011 ◽  
pp. 2085-2095
Author(s):  
John P. Pestian ◽  
Lukasz Itert ◽  
Charlotte Andersen

Approximately 57 different types of clinical annotations construct a patient’s medical record. These annotations include radiology reports, discharge summaries, and surgical and nursing notes. Hospitals typically produce millions of text-based medical records over the course of a year. These records are essential for the delivery of care, but many are underutilized or not utilized at all for clinical research. The textual data found in these annotations is a rich source of insights into aspects of clinical care and the clinical delivery system. Recent regulatory actions, however, require that, in many cases, data not obtained through informed consent or data not related to the delivery of care must be made anonymous (as referred to by regulators as harmless), before they can be used. This article describes a practical approach with which Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC), a large pediatric academic medical center with more than 761,000 annual patient encounters, developed open source software for making pediatric clinical text harmless without losing its rich meaning. Development of the software dealt with many of the issues that often arise in natural language processing, such as data collection, disambiguation, and data scrubbing.


Author(s):  
Ina Liko ◽  
Lisa Corbin ◽  
Eric Tobin ◽  
Christina L Aquilante ◽  
Yee Ming Lee

Abstract Disclaimer In an effort to expedite the publication of articles related to the COVID-19 pandemic, AJHP is posting these manuscripts online as soon as possible after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and copyedited, but are posted online before technical formatting and author proofing. These manuscripts are not the final version of record and will be replaced with the final article (formatted per AJHP style and proofed by the authors) at a later time. Purpose We describe the implementation of a pharmacist-provided pharmacogenomics (PGx) service in an executive health program (EHP) at an academic medical center. Summary As interest in genomic testing grows, pharmacists have the opportunity to advance the use of PGx in EHPs, in collaboration with other healthcare professionals. In November 2018, a pharmacist-provided PGx service was established in the EHP at the University of Colorado Hospital. The team members included 3 physicians, a pharmacist trained in PGx, a registered dietitian/exercise physiologist, a nurse, and 2 medical assistants. We conducted 4 preimplementation steps: (1) assessment of the patient population, (2) selection of a PGx test, (3) establishment of a visit structure, and (4) selection of a billing model. The PGx consultations involved two 1-hour visits. The first visit encompassed pretest PGx education, review of the patient’s current medications and previous medication intolerances, and DNA sample collection for genotyping. After this visit, the pharmacist developed a therapeutic plan based on the PGx test results, discussed the results and plan with the physician, and created a personalized PGx report. At the second visit, the pharmacist reviewed the PGx test results, personalized the PGx report, and discussed the PGx-guided therapeutic plan with the patient. Overall, the strategy worked well; minor challenges included evaluation of gene-drug pairs with limited PGx evidence, communication of information to non-EHP providers, scheduling issues, and reimbursement. Conclusion The addition of a PGx service within an EHP was feasible and provided pharmacists the opportunity to lead PGx efforts and collaborate with physicians to expand the precision medicine footprint at an academic medical center.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 1116-1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pious D Patel ◽  
Jared Cobb ◽  
Deidre Wright ◽  
Robert W Turer ◽  
Tiffany Jordan ◽  
...  

Abstract The COVID-19 national emergency has led to surging care demand and the need for unprecedented telehealth expansion. Rapid telehealth expansion can be especially complex for pediatric patients. From the experience of a large academic medical center, this report describes a pathway for efficiently increasing capacity of remote pediatric enrollment for telehealth while fulfilling privacy, security, and convenience concerns. The design and implementation of the process took 2 days. Five process requirements were identified: efficient enrollment, remote ability to establish parentage, minimal additional work for application processing, compliance with guidelines for adolescent autonomy, and compliance with institutional privacy and security policies. Weekly enrollment subsequently increased 10-fold for children (age 0–12 years) and 1.2-fold for adolescents (age 13–17 years). Weekly telehealth visits increased 200-fold for children and 90-fold for adolescents. The obstacles and solutions presented in this report can provide guidance to health systems for similar challenges during the COVID-19 response and future disasters.


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