• J Am Med Inform Assoc · Apr 2017

    Online patient websites for electronic health record access among vulnerable populations: portals to nowhere?

    • Lina Tieu, Dean Schillinger, Urmimala Sarkar, Mekhala Hoskote, Kenneth J Hahn, Neda Ratanawongsa, James D Ralston, and Courtney R Lyles.
    • University of California, San Francisco, Center for Vulnerable Populations.
    • J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2017 Apr 1; 24 (e1): e47-e54.

    ObjectiveWith the rapid rise in the adoption of patient portals, many patients are gaining access to their personal health information online for the first time. The objective of this study was to examine specific usability barriers to patient portal engagement among a diverse group of patients and caregivers.Materials And MethodsWe conducted interviews using performance testing and think-aloud methods with 23 patients and 2 caregivers as they first attempted to use features of a newly launched patient portal.ResultsIn navigating the portal, participants experienced basic computer barriers (eg, difficulty using a mouse), routine computer barriers (eg, mistyping, navigation issues), reading/writing barriers, and medical content barriers. Compared to participants with adequate health literacy, participants with limited health literacy required 2 additional minutes to complete each task and were more likely to experience each type of navigational barrier. They also experienced more inaccuracies in interpreting a test result and finding a treatment plan within an after-visit summary.DiscussionWhen using a patient portal for the first time, participants with limited health literacy completed fewer tasks unassisted, had a higher prevalence of encountering barriers, took longer to complete tasks, and had more problems accurately interpreting medical information.ConclusionOur findings suggest a strong need for tailored and accessible training and support to assist all vulnerable patients and/or caregivers with portal registration and use. Measuring the health literacy of a patient population might serve as a strong proxy for identifying patients who need the most support in using health technologies.© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…