Patient Portals
Patient portals are an inevitable part of the modernisation and digitisation of healthcare. They are an opportunity for people to access and manage their own data, and the NHS, GP services, and other organisations are keenly pursuing these avenues to empower the public.
At The Access Group, we’re keenly seeking new opportunities to help with our software solutions. There are many possibilities for how a patient portal could be integrated with other tools such as electronic patient records, a mood diary, and even home monitoring kit.
With this in mind, we have delved into patient portals: what they are, examples of their implementation, and the pros and cons of using such digital avenues in healthcare.
What is a Patient Portal?
A patient portal is a healthcare application designed to encourage patients to interact with their own care. These apps are usually available on smartphones and web browsers, and allow people over the age of 18 to connect with their local GP surgery, pharmacy, or NHS trust.
Patient portals require internet access but are typically available at all times of the day or night. With a secure, personal login a user can look at their own personal information and, if necessary, amend it. They can also see their medical history, view or reschedule appointments, read test results, receive letters from clinicians, and manage prescriptions.
Some more advanced patient portals will support direct communication between you and your doctor or most recently visited clinician, though this isn’t too common. Instead, portals often provide contact details for calls or a form to request a callback.
One practice being pursued though is the availability of educational resources for patients to better understand medical conditions or healthcare practices, without having to engage with healthcare professionals thus saving their time for other care matters.
How to set up a Patient Portal
Typically, the most efficient way to set up a patient portal is to buy a solution from a software company. This will usually be faster and avoids the slow process to build a product up from the basic coding into a fleshed out, bespoke product.
There are many patient portal solutions available for you to purchase from the healthcare market, although you may want to know how to create a patient portal for yourself. Such a process will require an initial plan – to make sure you know the community, your patients, and what is needed or wanted – and then requires the hiring of software developers to code the project, as well as liaison time with clinicians and other staff to ensure correct functionality.
The NHS has a patient care aggregator. It links to the official NHS app, as well as other secondary patient portal services, exchanging patient data. The system, visible on the NHS Digital website, shows the flow of this information through the NHS. This information exchange is how patient portals improve patient engagement; the portals offer personalised information to an individual at a moment of their choosing. It’s accurate, which in turn inspires confidence in the healthcare provider, but it also allows for flexibility and care to be accommodated in the patient’s day-to-day life.
For any organisations wanting to create their own patient portal, NHS Digital has a developer guide for building a patient portal. This in-depth article explains the necessities involved in the creation of such a healthcare solution, such as requirements for appointment management, URL construction, and patient authentication via NHS details. Failure to abide by these requirements will result in an inability to connect to the patient care aggregator and the wider NHS network.
Patient portal information
A patient portal is an access point for people to view their medical information in a quick and easy fashion, without relying on healthcare professionals and administrators to assist. Portals can also be used to send correspondence, such as appointment letters or test results.
Why is a patient portal important in healthcare
In the words of the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, it is “a secure way for us to send you your health information, communicate with you and for you to manage your health all in one place.”
The goal of a patient portal system is twofold: to give greater freedom of personal data access to the patient, and to take the burden of said access away from staff, freeing them to work on other tasks.
Electronic patient portals have to be data secure to protect patient privacy. The NHS has its own requirements for health record systems, courtesy of the NHS Digital Clinical Safety team. They expect a DCB0129 compliant software provider which in layman’s terms means they adhere to NHS requirements to safeguard patient data and the access or distribution of it.
They will also typically look for solutions to be ISO27001 certified (Information Security Management) and the UK – even post-Brexit – adheres to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and so too must patient portals.
Patient portal examples
Many people will already have used online patient portals, even if they don’t know it. Online GP services, NHS services, and other healthcare provision requires you to log in to access your personal information, medical records, and to make appointments or to book services. This is a patient portal.
GP services:
GP practices are using solutions such as Patient Access to be their patient portal provider. The portal requires login information, which has to be set up via the GP surgery. This requires photo ID as well as correct confirmation of personal details, but once established it will allow the patient to manage appointments, request repeat prescriptions, and to message the surgery.
NHS services:
Setting up your NHS Login will allow you to access the NHS app or a range of related service apps – many of which are trust-specific or service-specific patient portals. The NHS has a high level of security akin to online banking, with the options to log in via biometrics, such as fingerprint identification or facial recognition.
Many trusts use specific providers, one example being DrDoctor, though it is unclear if there are any issues regarding communication given these apps will likely all have to adhere to the NHS digital guidelines and compatibility with the NHS Spine.
Patient portals pros and cons
Patient portals offer a lot of benefits. 24-hour access to your own personal medical data is a positive, because that empowers you, the patient, to track and monitor your own health and symptoms, as well as ensure accuracy within your own provided information for things such as allergies, or the medication you are currently taking.
Resources:
Many online patient portals now provide access to health resources related to your symptoms or conditions to assist in managing the problem or aiding recovery. Similarly, an electronic patient portal can be used to log a health journal to track changes in condition, and some even link to wearable devices that monitor your health to automatically record vitals.
Control:
Control over your own information means the power to control what happens with it. You can designate your own permissions for sharing your records, whether with healthcare professionals such as doctors and pharmacists, carers, or even family.
Appointments:
A big benefit is to appointment management. NHS England reported four years ago that missed appointments were costing the NHS more than £200 million a year, and they are pushing to improve this with patient portals, appointment management, and appointment notifications. Giving patients the freedom to request, re-arrange, or cancel an appointment at their leisure will improve engagement and benefit clinicians and patients alike with fewer wasted opportunities. This can be done digitally, or through a pre-assessment form, or via callbacks to suit a reception team’s demands. It’s all about striving to accommodate the patient.
Going green:
In light of being environmentally friendly, patient portals can also manage letters and other communication. This saves paper, which in turn saves money and improves the provider’s carbon footprint, but also email is far quicker and more reliable than postal services.
Education:
There are some downsides to the online portals though. Digital literacy, particularly in older people, is a problem that will hinder usage of these portals. Given the likelihood that older people are more likely to need NHS or GP services, this could prove problematic without support and guidance – personal or in the form of literature instructions. Traditional contact is still available, and the younger generations are freeing up the phone lines for those older, but that still limits those older patients in terms of the freedom and flexibility potentially available to them with online services.
Internet:
The online part also means a requirement for internet access. Most people do have this, but there are varying degrees of internet access, speed, and reliability across the UK, and that’s not even factoring in how modern and suitable a device is for accessing these portals. A dedicated app might be reliable, but a webpage-only portal might struggle on an old phone or computer.
Personal touch:
Finally comes the human element. Sometimes a patient may not know what service or support they want or need. The ability to contact an actual person for quick support isn’t necessarily guaranteed with the advent of online patient portals. The portals are meant to reduce demands on staff, but the risk is a swing too far the other way and isolating people with generic, impersonal information and FAQs, or even a contact email address to petition for help – not knowing if you will get it and how long it will take.
How can Access help?
We’re partnering with providers of patient portals, such as Wellola, to integrate with our Electronic Patient Record system (Rio EPR) so all information from the portal flows back into a patient’s record, meaning there is a single source of truth.
Another of our solutions, Rio Virtual Assistant, offers a digital front door to Trust services; giving patients the ability to manage appointments, assessment forms and complete e-consent for vaccinations.
This is how to get patients to use a patient portal; by offering them the services and capability to get involved. A simple to use, centralised hub of patient information works well for both the healthcare provider and the patient.
It’s convenient, it’s accurate, and it’s a direct connection between the two parties. In many cases people just having a login is enough for them to get on with using the patient portal, but for those who struggle digitally a virtual assistant is an excellent solution to provide a more natural, human approach that will engage and circumvent many of the difficulties or apprehensions surrounding patient portals.
Healthcare providers want patients to get the best experiences and outcomes. Evidence shows that digital tools improve patient engagement, which in turn achieves greater patient satisfaction, greater confidence thanks to education and better relationships, and results in better care outcomes.
Patients can and will help themselves, but healthcare needs companies like The Access Group to grease the wheels in certain parts of the ecosystem to empower people to do more.
