research-article

Messaging to your doctors: understanding patient-provider communications via a portal system

Authors:

Joshua C. Denny,

Trent S. Rosenbloom,

Hua XuAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 1739 - 1748

https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466230

Published: 27 April 2013 Publication History

Abstract

The patient portal is a relatively new healthcare information technology that enables patients more convenient access to their healthcare information and allows them to send messages to their doctors. Our study examines the themes discussed in these messages and the different ways in which patients communicate with their providers via a portal employed in a large medical center. We also explore the differences between the patient portal and more traditional communication media, and investigated the advantages and potential problems of the portal system. Our findings show a wide variety of topics discussed in the communication messages (such as medication, appointments, laboratory tests, etc.) and how patients provide information, consult with their providers, and express psychosocial and emotional needs. We argue that the patient portal improves the accuracy of communication and could facilitate illness management for patients, especially over a longer term. However, messaging through the patient portal is not popular among patients and the simultaneous use of multiple communication media may create information gaps. More research is needed to better elucidate barriers to the use of patient portals and the optimal methods of communication and information integration given different contexts.

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Cited By

Staehelin DDolata MRosch SFärber ASchwabe G(2024)"Let's embark on a joint health journey" - How Boundary Negotiating Artifacts Influence Patients' Psychological Ownership in Chronic CareProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869448:CSCW2(1-39)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686944
Pater JChopra SCarroll JZaccour JNova FToscos TGuha SChang F(2024)Charting the COVID Long Haul Experience - A Longitudinal Exploration of Symptoms, Activity, and Clinical AdherenceProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642827(1-21)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642827
Nakikj DKreda DGehlenborg N(2023)Alerts and Collections for Automating Patients’ Sensemaking and Organizing of Their Electronic Health Record Data for Reflection, Planning, and Clinical Visits: Qualitative Research-Through-Design StudyJMIR Human Factors10.2196/4155210(e41552)Online publication date: 21-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.2196/41552
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Messaging to your doctors: understanding patient-provider communications via a portal system
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing systems and tools
2. Information systems
  1. World Wide Web
    1. Web applications
      1. Internet communications tools

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2013

3550 pages

ISBN:9781450318990

DOI:10.1145/2470654

General Chair:
Wendy E. Mackay
INRIA
,
Program Chairs:
Stephen Brewster
Glasgow University
,
Susanne Bødker
University of Aarhus

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

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Published: 27 April 2013

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April 27 - May 2, 2013

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CHI '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 392 of 1,963 submissions, 20%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686944
Pater JChopra SCarroll JZaccour JNova FToscos TGuha SChang F(2024)Charting the COVID Long Haul Experience - A Longitudinal Exploration of Symptoms, Activity, and Clinical AdherenceProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642827(1-21)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642827
Nakikj DKreda DGehlenborg N(2023)Alerts and Collections for Automating Patients’ Sensemaking and Organizing of Their Electronic Health Record Data for Reflection, Planning, and Clinical Visits: Qualitative Research-Through-Design StudyJMIR Human Factors10.2196/4155210(e41552)Online publication date: 21-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.2196/41552
Tseng YJarupreechachan WLee T(2023)Understanding the Benefits and Design of Chatbots to Meet the Healthcare Needs of Migrant WorkersProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36101067:CSCW2(1-34)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
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Ren YWu DKhurana AMastorakos GFu SZong NFan JLiu HHuang M(2023)Classification of Patient Portal Messages with BERT-based Language Models2023 IEEE 11th International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI)10.1109/ICHI57859.2023.00033(176-182)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICHI57859.2023.00033
Wang RHuang YZhang XYao Y(2023)Online dialogue with medical professionals: An empirical study of an online “Ask the Doctor” platformInternational Journal of Medical Informatics10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2023.105123177(105123)Online publication date: Sep-2023
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Zhou JArriaga RLiu HHuang M(2022)A Tale of Two Perspectives: Harvesting System Views and User Views to Understand Patient Portal Engagement2022 IEEE 10th International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI)10.1109/ICHI54592.2022.00059(373-383)Online publication date: Jun-2022
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