High Volume Portal Usage Impacts Practice Resources.

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Primary Care Medicine

Background:

• Patient portals provide patient-centered benefits.
• Successful patient portal implementation necessitates a comprehensive team approach.
• Increased patient portal usage leads to a high volume of secure patient messages.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the impact of high patient secure message volume on a fee-for-service academic family medicine practice.
• To identify necessary practice adaptations for managing increased patient messaging.

Main Methods:

• Descriptive analysis of patient secure message volume in an academic family medicine setting.
• Evaluation of practice adaptations to manage message characteristics (volume, length, complexity).

Main Results:

• High patient message volume presents challenges to practice workflow.
• Practice adaptations are essential for managing message volume, length, and complexity.
• Dedicated, trained staff and protected provider time are key to minimizing clerical burden.

Conclusions:

• Effective management of patient portals requires strategic practice adaptations.
• A dedicated support staff and protected provider time are vital for sustainable patient portal use.
• Team-based approaches are critical for optimizing patient portal integration in primary care.