Call it one government agency watching another government agency watching healthcare providers’ online patient engagement.
A new blog post from Carolyn Yocom, director, healthcare, at the U.S Government Accountability Office writes that if the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wants hospitals and other providers to boost the number of patients using digital healthcare tools via patient portals it needs to come up with better ways to monitor Medicare hospitals than just sending out an annual survey.
A recent report from HHS reveals that many hospitals have a patient portal to access healthcare information but that relatively few patients use them.
The healthcare providers that participated in the most recent Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program offered access to almost 90% of their patients—but less than 1/3 of those patients used it.
Patients interviewed for the report cite multiple reasons for why they don’t use patient portals more frequently.
One reason appears to be that patients often receive access to a different portal for each provider they visit, and must manage separate login information for each one. Patients are frustrated with the amount of time and effort it takes to set up access to each portal, understand each portal’s user interface, and manage all the different passwords, says the HHS report.
Most providers also routinely offer access to lab test results, information about allergies, and current medications. However, patients note that the information available to them often is incomplete and inconsistent across providers, and they frequently are unclear about whether it can be electronically downloaded, transmitted, or aggregated in one place.
In general patients find portals useful. Patients noted they were able to use portals to better communicate with their healthcare providers, track health information, and share this information with other providers,” says the HHS report.
“We found that patients usually accessed their records before or after a visit with their provider,” the report says. “Patients also described using these portals to access ‘convenience features,’ such as appointment scheduling and reminders, and medication refill requests.”
HHS says it is aware of the need to help providers increase the use of portals. But the GAO says HHS needs to become proactive by putting in place performance requirements and measurements.
“Such actions may include assessing the status of program operations or identifying areas that need improvement to help achieve program goals related to increasing patients’ ability to access their health information electronically,” GAO says.
HHS has yet to respond, the GAO says. “We recommended that HHS develop some performance measures to help determine whether their actions are working,” Yocom says in her blog post.
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