Here’s this week’s good news in health IT: over 90 percent of hospitals now provide portals or similar platforms allowing patients to electronically access their medical records, according to a new report from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).
The bad news, however, is that few patients actually use them. Fewer than eight percent of hospitals report that half or more of their patients have activated their patient portal, and nearly 40 percent reported that less than ten percent of patients have logged on. This is in spite of data in the report showing that two-thirds of hospitals offer services like secure messaging, electronic bill pay, and online scheduling that are highly valued by consumers.
The root cause lies in simplicity and connectivity. Each hospital or independent physician practice has its own portal, forcing the patient to manage multiple logins and navigate myriad systems, each of which only displays a slice of their medical records. Rarely can the systems communicate with each other to allow providers access to the patient’s complete record.
Asking patients to navigate multiple portals from different healthcare providers is like asking them to use different web browsers for each site they visit—it’s cumbersome and nonsensical, the hallmark of a design driven by regulatory requirement rather than consumer value.
What’s needed is one, unified consumer portal for healthcare, which integrates all the different providers’ information feeds. For that, we’d need a truly consumer-centric healthcare system, built around and controlled by the individual. Maybe one day.
HENRY KOTULA 