An Agenda to Support Care Partner Engagement through the Patient Portal

Tools that help patients to digitally manage their health and health care have become increasingly important in recent years. The patient portal is the most well-established and widely used digital health tool through which patients may access their electronic medical record. Organizational efforts to promote awareness and use of the patient portal have primarily been directed at patients, yet millions of Americans with complex and costly health needs and disabilities manage their health with one or more care partners from among their family and friends. The presence and capacity of care partners can have profound effects on care quality and resource use, but their involvement is not well supported in care delivery. Care partners have been generally excluded from digital health initiatives and are often unable to access the information they need to coordinate or execute the patient's care plan. In this article, the authors take stock of the current landscape of care partner engagement through the patient portal, given its widespread availability and use. They describe the launch of the Coalition for Care Partners to stimulate collaborative initiatives to advance research, policy, and practice in this arena, and present an agenda to advance the field.