Determining Patient's Interest in Patient Portal Use in a Primary Care Clinic to Improve Portal Adoption

Patients accessing their personal health information has the potential to improve their healthcare decision-making. Despite the potential benefits of patient portals and government reform, adoption has been poor. The objective of this project is to determine patients' awareness of their patient portal and their interest in portal functionalities to assist with increasing patient portal adoption. Forty-two patients completed a 9-item survey at a primary care clinic. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. 83% of patients were interested in having access to their health information. 55% were aware of the patient portal and only 35% were signed up. The main reason for not signing up was unawareness of service (35%). Majority of participants (77%) were most interested in viewing personal health information and 50% were interested in secure messaging. These results provide valuable information about patient's interest in accessing the patient portal and provides information on functionalities of interest.