Health professionals’ experiences with a patient portal pre and post launch: A qualitative study

Objectives

Digital technologies are extending existing healthcare models, and increasingly supporting delivery of new care models. One such technology are patient portals, which are digital platforms that are integrated with clinical information systems like Electronic Health Records. They are designed to provide patients/carers access to a range of features including communication with their healthcare team, and access to information in their health record such as test results and prescriptions. The aim of the study described in this manuscript was to compare hospital staff perceptions of a patient portal before and after implementation at a paediatric hospital.

Method

A qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews was used to understand the perceptions of clinical and administrative hospital staff before and three months after the implementation of the patient portal. Interviews were undertaken with 12 participants pre-launch, and 8 participants’ post-launch.

Results

Post-implementation health professionals who felt there was greater uptake of the patient portal by patients/carers tended to be more positive about its benefits than those who reported lower patient/family uptake. Likewise, concerns about integrating the tool into the workflow may be overcome if the patient portal would improve management of care for patient/carers.

Conclusions

When health professionals are actively involved in the design and implementation of patient portals, they had more realistic and positive expectations of their benefits to patients/carers. Similarly, if benefits can be conferred to patients/carers, health professionals are less likely to have concerns about barriers to uptake such as perceived increase to workload in relation to the patient portal.