Table 2.

Theme 2—Barriers to portal use.

Subthemes	Patient quotes	Provider quotes
Usability and discoverability	“I didn’t enjoy using it. And it was a real pain and it took a lot of time and would rather have had something like, you gave me a blood monitor and I just downloaded it…”	“The problems were largely infrastructure: the program versions; the hardware; the connectivity issues; the actual program for care was fine.”
	“I can’t take a half a day to sit in front of the computer to put the information in.”	“The system is cumbersome and needs an interface that addresses the needs of patients and data entry requirements.”
		“I hate computers and find most interactions frustrating. This is for the future and most of my patients with disease are even less computer knowledgeable than I.”
Appropriateness	“I’ve got other things that are pressing on my mind that I've taken, you know, precedence and overridden everything else that's going on and until those matters get taken care of I've put a lot of stuff that I shouldn't, especially the diabetes and that on the back burner until the other stuff gets taken care of…”	“…many patients brought in sheets of info they felt were important or clinically relevant (eg, individual glucose graphs), which had limited use, but instead served to increase visit time as I educated why the measure was not as important as other indicators. Longer visits, little added benefit.”
	“No, I don’t think so, really. Just ‘cause...I mean...see, I’ve been a diabetic and high blood pressure that has been under control...for a very long time. Well, I know myself probably better than the doctor does, you know what I mean?”	“The messaging system is great yet can be utilized negatively by patients increasing workload on mydoctor.ca and decreasing time for other patient interactions in office. The messaging system has also increased expectations from patients for immediate response.”