What is a healthcare patient
portal?

Patient portals provide patients with an easier way to communicate and interact with their healthcare providers. They enable patient access to their medical records and personal information. More specifically, they have a positive impact on patient engagement by encouraging self management.

There are two varieties of patient portals, which include a standalone system and an integrated service. Integrated patient portal functionality is usually a big part of an electronic medical records (EHR) system or practice management software.

In their purest form patient portals are web-based tools that are allowing patients to look at their test results, update insurance providers, pay bills, schedule appointments and ask their practitioners questions.

Patient portal vendors present the opportunity to:

Improve healthcare
outcomes
Manage costs
Promote telemedicine
Streamline workflow
Focus on patient
centered care

How is analytics used in
healthcare?

The core of an electronic health record (EHR) is for it to be a digital version of a patient’s medical data utilizing health information technology. EHRs are patient-centered records in real-time that give access to the necessary databases quickly and easily to authorized users.

EHR is a vital part of any IT system used by healthcare providers because it is meant to do things beyond saving medical and treatment histories of patients:

Allows access to analytical tools which a care team can use to make better decisions that can improve patient outcomes.
Automates and increases the productivity of office staff’s workflow.
Safely contains the patient’s medical history, treatment plans, allergies, diagnostic test results, chronic diseases, health behaviors, lab results, and immunization dates.

The biggest focus point of EHR is that personal health information can be created and managed by authorized administrative staff in an electronic format, able to be shared with other healthcare providers and organizations, depending on patient needs.

For the full information of a patient to be shared with other practitioners and clinics, EHR is able to keep and distribute this data
to laboratories, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency care institutions, work/school clinics, etc.

This way a full medical background is easily provided for every patient that may need medical assistance.

What is the difference between
patient portals and electronic
health records?

In the case of the two terms - electronic health records (EHR) and patient portals - while the two have a lot in common (used by some interchangeably), they do have a couple of differences.

Electronic health records are an advanced system that stores all patient information from medical issues to treatment plans that can be shared on multiple devices with another care provider.

Patient portal is a system that establishes better communication between patients and doctors. It’s vital to note that the increasing demand for patient portals is thanks to the mass adoption of EHR systems by 88.2% of office-based physicians.

The significant difference is that EHR is integrated into a patient
portal system, but it is not something patients manage through their mobile devices, whereas the portal is exactly that. A digital place where active users have portal access to reach their practitioner and have the option of online appointment scheduling.

The benefits and functionalities
of electronic patient portals

No matter what type of electronic platform you choose for your business, ensuring patient portal users become more involved in their medical care through a variety of functionalities and also provide many benefits for providers.

Electronic paperwork

About half of ed visits have to deal with patients having to fill out paperwork, which takes a lot of time and also unnecessary focus away from the medical situation at hand.

It also saves the staff time to scan all the paperwork with it already being in a digitized version. Patient portals can also provide patient satisfaction surveys that can be filled out at a later point to evaluate their patient experience.

Appointment scheduling

Many patient portals, if not all of them, have a system where you can use online scheduling features. This way instead of having to phone your doctor to schedule a date and time, patient portals have a calendar that shows a health provider’s free slots and you can choose on your own.

The only thing needed in such a situation is for a staff member to confirm the appointment and for you to receive a notification of it, which is also something available to portal users.

Medical record access

Increasing number of patients want to be able to access their personal medical information from home, not having to go all the way to their healthcare provider. That is why having this as an option is key to having an efficient and successful health patient portal.

These records include diagnoses, medications, allergies, and treatments. They improve adherence by alerting patients when they have a check-up scheduled or take their medicine, which is especially useful with older patients.

Prescription refills

Health portals can also be of great assistance when patients request prescription refills. Most services have a feature on their platform where they can enter information, designate a pharmacy and what medication they need, and submit a request, which can be verified and approved by the provider’s staff.

Online bill pay

Having to talk about bills and money with your doctor can oftentimes feel uncomfortable, as practitioners themselves are not trained financialists. That is why patient portals can offer an easy alternative where the entire collections process can be made online and patients can make secure payments.

In this case the system can also automatically process payments when they are submitted. To verify the security of it, the system can ask for patient activation of this feature.

Secure messaging

Being able to exchange secure messages with patients via the portal instead of the phone or in person is a definite plus. Most systems provide a platform where the healthcare provider can securely communicate with their patients when needed. Practitioners can also see patient responses and messages without there being any worry for data leakage.

Patient portals can allow an amazing increase in patient satisfaction and workflow efficiency by providing a system that is easy to use.

To have such a system, however, it is important that healthcare providers have a partner that has years of experience in the field of medical software development with which they can easily communicate to achieve their goals.