Thirty-eight percent of Americans accessed a patient portal in 2020, according to a report from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
The ONC surveyed 3,865 Americans about their use of patient portals from January 2020 through April 2020. Below are five key findings:
- Fifty-nine percent of Americans were offered a patient portal in 2020, up from 42 percent in 2014. Thirty-eight percent of Americans accessed a patient portal in 2020, up from 25 percent in 2014.
- Respondents who didn't use patient portals even though they were available to them cited the following reasons: preference of speaking with healthcare providers directly (69 percent), privacy and security concerns (24 percent), difficulty with logging in (24 percent) and not being comfortable around computers (20 percent).
- Patients who were encouraged by their healthcare provider to use their patient portal accessed and used their portal at higher rates compared to those not encouraged.
- In 2020, 61 percent of patient portal users accessed their health information using only a computer, 22 percent used both a smartphone health app and a computer and 17 percent used a smartphone health app only.
- About a third of patient portal users downloaded their online medical record in 2020, a proportion that has nearly doubled since 2017.