Health Care Applicability of a Patient-Centric Web Portal for Patients' Medication Experience

With the advent of the patient-centered care paradigm, it is important to examine what patients' reports of medication experience (PROME) mean to patient care. PROME available through a Web portal provide information on medication treatment options and outcomes from the patient's perspective. Patients who find certain PROME compelling are likely to mention them at their physician visit, triggering a discussion between the patient and the physician. However, no studies have examined PROME's potential applicability to patient care.

This study aimed to examine older (≥50 years) adults' perceptions of the health care applicability of a hypothetical PROME Web portal. Specifically, this study investigated whether PROME would facilitate patient-physician communication, and identified the preferred reporting items and the trusted sponsors of such a PROME Web portal.

We used a cross-sectional, self-administered, 5-point Likert scale survey to examine participants' perceptions of a hypothetical PROME Web portal that compared PROME for 5 common antihypertensive medications. Between August and December 2013, we recruited 300 members of 7 seniors' centers in a metropolitan area of a southeastern state of the United States to participate in the survey.

An overwhelming majority of study participants (243/300, 81.0%) had a favorable perception of PROME's health care applicability. They were mostly positive that PROME would facilitate patient-physician communication, except for the perception that physicians would be upset by the mention of PROME (n=133, 44.3%). Further, 85.7% (n=257) of participants considered the PROME information trustworthy, and 72.0% (n=216) were willing to participate by reporting their own medication experiences. Study participants wanted the PROME Web portal to report the number of reviews, star ratings, and individual comments concerning different medication attributes such as side effects (224/809, 27.7%), cost (168/809, 20.8%), and effectiveness (153/809, 18.9%). Finally, the PROME Web portal sponsorship was important to participants, with the most trusted sponsor being academic institutions (120/400, 30.0%).

PROME, if well compiled through Web portals, have the potential to facilitate patient-physician communication.