Patient Portals Often Not Specific Enough for Users, Research Finds

Although about nine in ten hospitals have deployed electronic portals that give patients access to their health data, many of these organizations are not adequately informing patients fully about using the portals, according to new research.

Researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine set out to determine the availability of hospital portals in the U.S. and what instructions were given to patients about using them.

The research team collected information from a random sample of 200 acute care hospitals from across the U.S. The study team accessed publicly available portal information from hospital websites and called the hospitals to request any additional information that was distributed to patients about portals or messaging. Then they read and analyzed the content, and came up with several key findings:

• Portal instructions were more focused on operational and legal information, like how to sign on and liability limits, than on instructing the patient on what medical circumstances are best suited for portal use.
• More than half of portals with secure messaging did not have available guidance describing the appropriate uses of messages and practices relating to them. Many had generic statements describing secure messaging, such as "send and receive messages from staff," but included no information on what message content would be considered appropriate.
• Some guidance used complicated language and vocabulary, which may hinder understanding by a general audience.

"We found that many instructional materials had more of a medicolegal focus, rather than a focus on the patient as a user," said Joy L. Lee, Ph.D., Regenstrief research scientist and lead author of the paper. "This research indicates there is room for improvement when it comes to educating patients on the portals, especially related to secure messaging. The guidance that exists includes a lot of 'don'ts', but not very many 'dos'. This makes it difficult for patients to properly utilize and benefit from the service."

Other findings from the researchers included:

• 89 percent of hospitals had patient portals
• 66 percent of patient portals included secure messaging
• 58 percent of secure messaging portals did not detail how the patient was supposed to use the messaging.

Many hospitals included disclaimers that the messaging was not for emergencies; however 23 included that inside the "Terms and Conditions" section, which few patients may actually read.

"Hospitals and healthcare systems have invested a lot of money in patient portals, but the investment won't pay off for them or the people they provide care for if patients are confused about how to use the portals or don't understand how to get the most out of the tool," said Lee.

Study authors did add that while many instructions could be improved, several good examples of complete and informative patient guidance do exist.