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AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings logoLink to AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings
. 2006;2006:1070.

Use and Satisfaction of a Patient Web Portal with a Shared Medical Record between Patients and Providers

James D Ralston 1, James Hereford 2, David Carrell 3, Maureena Moran 4
PMCID: PMC1839721  PMID: 17238689

Objective

To describe the evolution, use, and satisfaction of a patient Web portal with a shared medical record between patients and providers over a 40-month period.

Setting

Group Health Cooperative, a mixed model Health Maintenance Organization based in Seattle, Washington. For enrollees who receive care in the integrated delivery system (IDS), the Web portal, MyGroupHealth (MyGH), provides access to a shared electronic medical record (EMR). For all Group Health enrollees, the portal provides access to medication refills, discussion groups, health assessment tools, and the Healthwise knowledge base.

Methods

A retrospective analysis of content-specific portal use from server logs; random sample mail surveys of portal users in 2002 (N=1,182) and 2004 (N=2,002).

Results

Portal registration increased among all enrollees during study period. As of December 2005, 25% (105,047) had registered and completed an ID-verification process enabling them to use all available services. ID-verification was more common among enrollees receiving care in the IDS (33%) compared to the network (7%). As of December 2005, unique monthly user rates per 1,000 enrollees were the highest for medical test results review (46), medication refills (37), patient-provider clinical messaging (27), and after-visit summary review (27); medical condition review (20), appointment requests (10), immunization review (10), and allergy review (6) were less commonly used. Satisfaction survey response rates were 52% in 2002 (n=612) and 46% in 2004 (n=921). In 2004, 94 % of enrollees were satisfied or very satisfied with MyGH overall. Among individual MyGH services, enrollees reported highest satisfaction (satisfied or very satisfied) for medication refills (96%), patient provider messaging (93%), and medical test results (86%).

Conclusions

Use and satisfaction with the MyGH portal and shared record were greatest for services most actively part of clinical care and patient-provider communication. Tight integration of portal services with clinical care and the EMR may be important in meeting the needs of patients.


Articles from AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings are provided here courtesy of American Medical Informatics Association

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