The patient portal of today has some neat features that are convenient for patients and save time and money for providers—online appointment scheduling and lab results for example. But what will the portal of the future look like?
Well, it might have a social media vibe, according to providers and experts I interviewed for a story on patient portals in this month's issue of HealthLeaders Magazine.
"The future of the patient portal is unlimited at this point," said Barbara Fahl-Watkins, administrator of the Heart & Vascular Center of Arizona. "I feel like we are just scratching the surface in finding new ways to communicate more thoroughly and efficiently with patients."
Eventually, portals could bring together virtual collaborative care teams that patients can access when it is convenient to them.
"In the future we will see the emergence of collaborative care plans where patients and doctors collaborate on disease management through patient portals," Brandon Savage, MD, chief medical officer at GE Healthcare IT, says in the article. "These interactions can be tied to collaborative care plans which ensure that best practices for quality, cost, and efficiency can be continuously brought to the patient not only at the point of care but throughout their daily life."
Smartphones and other small portable devices such as tablets have already changed the way consumers connect and communicate—in healthcare, patient and physician interaction will "likely occur much more with brief frequent interactions like Twitter than through prolonged infrequent interactions via a desktop computer," he says.
Providers often talk about the importance of access—reading patients when and where they are. Building patient portals that borrow from social media is one way to do that. OK, maybe patient portals will never be a daily destination such as Facebook or as addictive a chat-fest as Twitter. But perhaps borrowing some of the features of those sites will make patients more engaged in their care—and make it easier to provide them with the best care.
"In the future there will be more healthcare organizations using portals as a resource for patients to see valuable health information, but also as a way to increase patient loyalty and to grow market share," says Kim Gordon, integration solutions manager at Spectrum Health. "I see patient portals in healthcare moving from being used as a competitive advantage and patient satisfaction initiative to becoming something that a consumer of healthcare services demands and expects."
Read Patient Portals: A Look Forward and its companion piece, Patient Portals go Mobile, in this month's issue of HealthLeaders Magazine.