Providing alternate ways for patients to keep in touch with your healthcare adds value to your organisation. One obvious example is requisite direct engagement with patients through a patient portal. Before Meaningful Use, the patient portal was a rare beast indeed, but now, nearly every provider has one. They will appreciate communicating with the providers, being able to keep updated in-between visits and the convenience in general.
As a help desk (service desk) provider for hospitals, we were not surprised to begin receiving client requests for patient portal support. In applying our knowledge to this challenge, here’s what we’ve learned:
- Personal Health Information (PHI):It is also referred to as protected health information, generally refers to demographic information, medical history, test and laboratory results, insurance information and other data that a healthcare professional collects to identify an individual and determine appropriate care. HIPAA’s rules for protected health information were initially mostly applied to paper records. Since the passage of the HITECH Act and healthcare providers’ subsequent implementations of electronic health records (EHRs) and other modern IT systems, HIPAA has increasingly governed electronically-stored patient data because providers transitioned PHI from paper to electronic formats. Many outsourced service desks will not even take patient calls because of this concern. And, they shouldn’t, if they haven’t implemented thorough privacy protections in their processes. More on WWS’s security http://localhost/main-site-update/hipaa-privacy-security-resources/
- Calls during non business hours: A patients are far more likely to call after working hours than hospital IT users, including during the weekend. Hospitals must rethink their help desk capabilities and hours of operation to address patient inquiries. Unfortunately, many existing hospital IT support operations tend to operate business hours only. If expansion of help desk access to evenings and weekends is needed, management may need to develop creative, cost-effective solutions.Same way, providing patient portals for better overall patient management is a welcome accessibility not just to the patients but the physicians themselves. But, they also mean setting-up dedicated additional resources both technology-wise and staff-wise. This could add on to an all already complex revenue management. From setting up appointments, to asking and answering clear and pointed questions (where email volumes would be problematic), these portals are very effective.There are some billing companies who offer these service as well; with dedicated teams to handle them expertly.
49% said their doctors have portals.
40% of patients have no idea of patient portal benefits.
11% said their doctors don’t offer portals.
Give us a call +1(302) 613-1356 or If you simply would like to know more about the unique challenges of patient portal support click the link for live demo http://localhost/main-site-update/live-demo/
“Patient portals may affect Clinical outcomes, Health service utilisation, Patient–Provider Communication, Patient satisfaction and Patient empowerment, with health services by four mechanisms. These mechanisms are: Patient insight into information, Interpersonal continuity of care, Service convenience and Activation of information. The significance of these mechanisms differs per outcome. Paradoxically, patient portals may have higher impact in more fragmented contexts that are less conducive to patient portal implementation and use.
