Study: Promote portals at office visit to increase use

By engaging patients to use a portal during an office visit and supporting practices to integrate use into care, primary care practices (PCPs) can manage high portal usage rates, according to research published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

The study, conducted by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University, sought to determine whether there are effective and affordable ways to encourage portal use for small to medium practices.

Between December 2010 and June 2013, they applied a mixed methods design to evaluate a proactive implementation strategy for a patient portal at eight PCPs. These strategies entailed a series of learning collaboratives with practice champions and redesigned workflow to integrate portal use into care. The researchers prospectively assessed practice implementation strategies, portal use and factors influencing use.

Usage increased by 1 percent each month, and 25.6 percent of patients informed of the portal during the office visit went on to create an account. This rate was significantly higher than that for practices that mailed information at portals, which was about 16.8 percent, according to previous research cited in the study.

“Small to medium-sized primary care practices can effectively engage patients to use patient portals by integrating promotion into routine care. This approach appears to be more effective than mailing invitations and to match the results of more elaborate promotion efforts by large integrated health systems,” wrote the authors.

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