A patient portal in place at Orange County, Calif.-based St. Joseph Heritage Medical Group has reached 10 percent patient penetration and high patient satisfaction, as Michael Gilbert, MD, a St. Joseph Heritage physician and HIT Fellow at ONC, recently explained.
During the first incarnation of the patient portal, physicians were offered monetary bonuses for 50, and then 100, patient registrations. This spurred registrations, and patient feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Patients liked having around-the-clock access to their and their families' medical information and the ability to email providers.
When the practice's original patient portal vendor was sold to another company, the practice switched to a patient portal from their electronic health record system vendor, Allscripts. Despite a seamless transition, an estimated 40 percent of patient registrations were lost during the switch.
However, the expanded functionalities of the new portal, including online appointment scheduling, online bill pay, prescription renewals and the ability to accept patient-generated data on allergies and other health issues, helped the practice reach its current registration of more than 30,000 patients.
Several factors helped the practice enroll patients more seamlessly, including kiosks in the waiting room, a task force to help address patient's registration frustrations and direct outreach to unregistered patients.
Dr. Gilbert reported the most important factor in boosting patient registrations was provider engagement. "Despite all marketing efforts and staff engagement initiatives, it was the provider asking the patient to register, actively communicating results, responding to patient messages and engaging the patient in their healthcare through the online portal tools that was the single most important factor in motivating patients to buy into the new system," he wrote.
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