Q&A: Using the patient portal to reduce workloads

Q. My organization is trying to leverage our patient portal to help reduce workload. How should we approach this project?

A. Patients should be encouraged to access their records through the patient portal. This recommendation has the potential of reducing workload significantly. Two steps are necessary to using the patient portal to reduce labor and improve customer satisfaction:

• Step one: Work with the information technology (IT) department to ensure that the documents most often requested are available through the portal. Using your ROI software and the “docu­ments sent” feature, identify the documents that are frequently requested. If the software does not have this feature, or if staff members are routinely reporting “documents sent” as “abstract,” then manual capture of commonly requested/released documents may be necessary. Regardless, the payback for the department is significant, and patient satisfaction will be enhanced if the docu­ments they most often need are electronically available through the portal whenever they wish to have them and at no additional cost.
• Step two: Encourage patients to use the portal. One client with whom we have worked has des­ignated an individual who visits patients while they are still in the hospital, signs them up for the portal, and orients them on how to access and use it. Doing this improves scores for meaningful use and other technology-based quality and cost incentive programs, and it also helps the patient learn how to use the portal. An alternative to this approach is to sign patients up when they walk in and ask for copies of their records. It is usually easier to orient patients in person, but orienting patients over the phone is also an option.

Promoting the portal should be an additional KPI for ROI. Set a goal with your IT department so that both departments benefit from your staff’s efforts.

For more information, see The Contemporary Guide to Health Information Management.

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