How Patient Portal Support Services Enable Meaningful Engagement

With the adoption of EHR technology, the patient experience has expanded to include not only in-person but also digital interactions with providers and health information.

The patient portal is a logical starting point for healthcare organizations looking to leverage technology that improves the patient experience beyond the exam room. However, this standard feature of today’s most widely used EHR technologies requires proper planning and maintenance to provide a meaningful digital experience for patients.

In the rush to implement certified EHR technology and receive financial incentives, the patient portal likely flew under the radar for many healthcare organizations.

“Incentives to adopt EHR technology brought significant change, much of it positive. But it also created some additional challenges that not everyone gave enough consideration to, especially in the patient portal space,” says Mandy Love, MyChart and Clinical Service Desk Director at Nuance Communications.

“Providers know the patient portal is something they must have,” she continues, “but many failed to anticipate the support and maintenance required to enable patient data access and keep them engaged as well.”

While an extension of the EHR system, the patient portal is unique that it is an external resource, one whose success depends on its ability to meet the needs and expectations of individuals with varying levels of comfort with technology.

Now that healthcare organizations have reached a level of stability with their EHR technology, they are coming to realize that the unique nature of patient portals necessitates a different approach. New roles focused on patient experience highlight the need to dedicate sufficient resources to the patient portal and increase its usefulness as a tool for information sharing and engagement.

“Patient engagement remains a serious challenge. The patient portal is front and center in the conversation about how to deliver a meaningful experience to users,” Love maintains, noting that more and more healthcare organizations realize the need for long-term support specifically focused on the patient portal.

Without proper consideration, organizations risk the patient portal becoming a source of frustration and dissatisfaction. New features are unlikely to meet with success if patient questions are not promptly addressed.

“If providers and clinical support staff are unable to respond quickly enough to patient requests, the patient portal will not provide value to patients,” Love warns.

Bringing in an outside perspective has proven to be an effective countermeasure for healthcare organizations. External support allows organizations to assess their patient portal capabilities and identify ways to improve the utility of the technology.

“Support services can provide much-needed guidance to struggling organizations," Love explains. "And these services are not limited to assessment. They can assist the organization in building a patient portal committee that brings all the different players together because the portal transcends multiple departments and specialties.”

Ideally, the committee would look at the myriad components comprising the patient portal, such as clinical data, scheduling, billing, and compliance. “Engaging this committee positions the organization to set and achieve its own goals and outcomes,” adds Love.

Support services can also provide relief to a healthcare organization's help desk, fulfilling basic requests and freeing resources to focus on high-priority projects and tasks.

“For us on the support side, we focus on the usability for the patient with an emphasis on enabling self-service tools to function efficiently," Love notes. "Anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of support requests are for password resets and account activation." 

External resources can also assist in meeting the patient engagement needs of every demographic and demonstrating the value of having an omnichannel approach, ranging from online chats to phone calls.

It’s all about meeting patients where they are. “If they struggle when they’re using the patient portal, then you decrease the likelihood that they'll use it again,” says Love.

No patient-facing technology is tailored to the needs of individual healthcare organizations right out of the box. Like any other tool, the patient portal requires tinkering and refinement. And with patients demanding more from their interactions with providers, these organizations cannot risk negative experiences.

Patient portals can be truly powerful tools in the hands of users, providing ample opportunities for self-service as well as reducing demand on front-end staff to collect information necessary for clinical decision-making and care management.

A failure to dedicate resources to the patient portal can put healthcare organizations at a competitive disadvantage as more patients become accustomed to robust self-service tools in other industries. By engaging external support services, organizations gain access to resources capable of providing a digital experience that not only meets but exceeds patient expectations.