Literature Review: Do Patient Portals Meet MU Needs?

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

As patient portals continue to grow in their importance and functionality, it is important to ask whether they are accomplishing what’s most important in terms of benefits to all stakeholders involved.

The Journal Of Medical Internet Research has published a systematic review that looks at exactly this, and most specifically, the impact that patient portals have on quality and chronic-condition outcomes, and their impact to Meaningful Use (MU).

IT Solutions Providers Take Away

Solutions Providers will find the “Discussion” portion of the study most useful. It covers the fact that, while patient portals may actually contribute to improved quality of care, it is unknown whether healthcare providers that do offer the portals can actually capitalize on any Meaningful Use Stage 2 incentives.

Since measure seven of 17 requires eligible professionals to “provide patients the ability to view online, download, and transmit their health information within four business days of the information being available to the EP [eligible provider],” the data provided does not support the association of patient portal results with this requirement.

If administrators would like to use patient portals in meeting their MU requirements, they are advised to invest in proper portal use training for patients. Developers will also need to conduct and be aware of ease-of-use studies in their work, as navigation can make or break the use of a tool.

The study also recommends that policy makers consider extending Meaningful Use incentives in a way that more clearly impacts patient portals so that more direct impact on quality of care can be realized.

The Review

The review was composed of a systematic literature search across Google Scholar, PubMed, and CINAHL, and involved the screening of over 4000 articles. Of those articles, 27 were analyzed and summarized for the review.

Results

Overall, very few studies were found that showed any association between the use of a patient portal (or its associated features) and improved patient outcomes. However, the review did find that 37 percent of the papers reported:

• more disease awareness
• better medication adherence
• a drop in office visits
• better self-management of disease
• an increase in preventative medicine
• an increase in extended office visits at the patient’s request

Additionally, it did find that patients were more satisfied overall, and that there was better patient/customer retention.

Future Studies

The review states that in the future, research should focus on more empirically measured quality indicators including patient satisfaction, medication adherence, and medical outcomes, and that study designs should be RCTs (randomized control trials) or at the very least, an experimental design.

Application

To learn more about recommendations on creating an effective patient portal, please read “What Should A Patient Portal Look Like.”