Table 3.

Theme 3—Communication and relationship with provider.

Subthemes	Patient quotes	Provider quotes
Role of AHP	“They went over them. [The dietitian] went over [them] when I saw [her] and [the nurse] went through them. [The doctor] never really did go through them… he left it to, like the dietitian and the nurse to go through with me…”	“[The portal] enabled the FHT DM nurse to become better integrated into the communication and care loop with my patients and myself.”
	“Well, the doctors are so busy these days and you really hate to bother them and the nurse was always available.”	“[It was important]…that pts can review their results and can communicate with our diabetic care team; ultimately hopeful that self-management increases and fewer MD visits required”
Provider engagement challenging	“No...I found it easy to use and I guess I would have liked to have seen it more central in my discussions and my appointments with the doctor but that's not a...not a major issue.”	“Some of this assumes Drs are sitting around with nothing better to do but review volumes of patient lab results” a
	“Like, I know he checked it once when I was there to see what my records and that were when I was with him and...but that’s just because I was there with them and I believe that even then it came up that it was checked by [the nurse] on the behalf of [the Dr.] not him checking it and I thought that was a little weird. I thought it should be the fact that the doctor actually checked it.	“[The portal was] somewhat useful for health professional….” a
		“…in a busy clinic- we would require to put time aside more to manage patients, which is not actually our mandate in the community.” a
Patient support	“If I would have had more support from the doctor saying, okay [anonymous], we haven’t heard from you for a while, can you ASAP your information to us so we can keep on contact with you.	“[The portal] allowed timely access to view blood sugar readings entered by patients—I would be able to titrate medications based on values sooner than I would have been able to if having to come in for app’ts.”
	“I really think there should have been more as to what were we expecting our numbers to be? What was appropriate numbers? And where were you at and could you compare your A1C and talk to your doctor every third month because we did this for six months wasn’t it or something…”	“Some patients take less responsibility in their self-management of the disease as they feel that the health care provider is in constant review of their blood sugars.” a
	“I felt more comfortable because I knew that somebody was getting my results and they were looking at them and if there was a problem they could email through the portal and just tell me if there’s, you know, you should be doing this or that the other thing.”

^a Italicized quotes denote contrasting opinions.