National clinical portal programme: what information do doctors want?

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Decision Support
• Medical Information Systems

Background:

• Electronic health information in secondary care is fragmented across disparate IT systems, hindering clinical decision-making.
• The Scottish Government is promoting clinical portal implementation to create a virtual electronic patient record from multiple sources.

Purpose of the Study:

• To survey secondary care doctors on their priorities for a clinical portal.
• To identify essential patient-centered information, knowledge support, and professional development resources.
• To compare expectations between senior clinicians and doctors in training.

Main Methods:

• An online survey was distributed to secondary care doctors in Scotland.
• Participants ranked the importance of various information types for a clinical portal.
• Subgroup analysis compared responses from senior doctors and trainees.

Main Results:

• A total of 677 senior doctors and 137 trainees responded.
• Patient-centered data (medications, allergies, alerts, history, test results, letters) were ranked highest.
• Clinical guidelines were identified as key knowledge support.
• Top 20 information priorities showed strong consistency between senior doctors and trainees.

Conclusions:

• Senior doctors and trainees share similar expectations for clinical portal content.
• The primary demand is for patient-centered information, supplemented by knowledge support.
• Clinical portals have the potential to significantly improve information accessibility and clinical decision-making in Scotland.