Surviving AmericanSurviving
American Medicine

Electronic medical records are becoming more common in doctor’s offices. One part of these software programs in some but not all electronic records is the online patient portal. These portals allow people to send messages to the doctor, get messages from the office, and review their tests and records.

It has been felt that use of these portals might make healthcare more efficient and reduce office visits, ultimately decreasing the costs of health care.

But a recent study http://bit.ly/UROb9t shows surprisingly that use of online portals actually increases use of clinical services. Users of these portals had about 1 more office visit per year, and more phone calls. there were also more after-hours clinic visits, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations.
I think that this finding of increased healthcare use was due to patients being more concerned about abnormal findings in their doctor’s records. This means that the portals were increasing the care that patients received. I expect that this will ultimately be found to increase benefits that patients receive.

Here are my tips for you:

• Ask your doctor is the electronic medical record has a patient portal that can allow you to get information. If the office does not have one, encourage them to get one, ask the office to send you all the information once it receives results, or consider finding a doctor who can give you that access.
• Check over the results and inquire about any abnormalities, concerns, or diagnoses.
• Remember that you and the doctor are a team, and both of you should be aware of what is happening to you. The portal can help you do this.

For more information about communicating effectively with your physician, see Chapter 7 in my book Surviving American Medicine.