Medicine in the time of technology: Step into the patient portal.
Medical records have caught up with today’s digital world—learn the benefits and challenges of managing your health information on a patient portal.
The field of medical information is a rapidly-changing landscape. Where our private information was once inked on paper and stored in folders and desks, it can now be available at the touch of a button—anywhere in the world—through a patient portal.
What is a patient portal? 
Patient portals—secure, online websites providing patients with 24-hour access to private health information—have become widely popular and are now offered by most providers who use Electronic Health Records providers.
Patient portal features include the ability to exchange educational materials and care alerts, pay bills online, take health risks assessments, fill out forms, and request appointments.
According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, 41 percent of family practice physicians use portals for secure messaging, 35 percent use them for patient education, and approximately one-third use them for prescribing medications and scheduling appointments.
What are the benefits?
These services can increase administrative efficiency and reduce the number of phone calls and time spent manually recording information, as well as improving communication and transparency. Patient portals benefit both patient care and provider workflow, and are a safe, secure way to store and share private health information.
The scope of record keeping means that it’s possible to archive information electronically, allowing both patients and health care providers to quickly and easily look at old information whenever relevant, instead of digging through paper records.
What are the challenges?
One of the primary challenges is that patient portals can be complicated to set up. There is a multiple-step registration process, and for users who are not tech-savvy, the user interface may be confusing.
Also, you may have separate patient portals for different health care providers. Your physician may use one type of patient portal, and your hospital another.
Additionally, patient portals may introduce the challenge of figuring out when is the right time to log on and send a message to your doctor. Users are advised to remember that communication with your doctor through the portal is for non-emergency situations and administrative purposes.
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