Inpatient portal clusters: identifying user groups based on portal features

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Patient Engagement
• Digital Health

Background:

• Inpatient portals (IPPs) are increasingly used in healthcare.
• Understanding user behavior within IPPs is crucial for optimizing their utility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a cluster analysis of inpatient portal users.
• To identify distinct user groups and their portal usage patterns.
• To inform strategies for enhancing patient engagement through IPPs.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 18 months of audit log data from 2815 patient admissions.
• Applied a hierarchical clustering algorithm to group users based on IPP feature utilization.
• Performed post-hoc analyses to characterize identified user clusters.

Main Results:

• Identified five distinct clusters of inpatient portal users.
• Characterized users by their access levels to features like schedules, results, tutorials, and food ordering.
• Observed that patient clusters remained consistent across multiple admissions and varied by patient/clinical characteristics.

Conclusions:

• Distinct user groups exist within inpatient portal usage.
• Tailored training and portal improvements can enhance patient engagement.
• Further research is needed to understand underutilized features and optimize IPP effectiveness.