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Revolution Health was the project by one of the former founders of Amazon. It was an online patient health record and one of the first. It has been around for years. It is also very well developed piece of software, doing all that a PHR should do.
Anyway, they are abandoning the concept and telling the few users they have to PRINT or download as a PDF thier files.
Revoltion Health has a well visited web site with lots of patient information - so the traffic was there. The concept is just a failure, which they are now admitting.
Having a patient portal in an EMR is probably a waste of time.
Medscribbler has the foundation coded for a portal but there does not seem to be demand and even some resistance from providers. So it is there if asked for but no sense in adding cost and bloat for unused features.
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Having a successful web portal for patients may depend on the location of the practice. I hear from offices that have turned their web portal into a significant source of income and patient satisfaction - quite a few actually. The group at http://www.highridgefamilypractice.com/ uses webview and seem to differ with your opinion.
Why not look into it and see who has the right story. Or maybe it's just a different story for each situation.
HuntsvilleDoc: Having a successful web portal for patients may depend on the location of the practice. I hear from offices that have turned their web portal into a significant source of income and patient satisfaction - quite a few actually. The group at http://www.highridgefamilypractice.com/ uses webview and seem to differ with your opinion. Why not look into it and see who has the right story. Or maybe it's just a different story for each situation.
The problem seems to be in definition. The High Ridge practice has a web site but it is a far distance away from a "patient portal" as defined by EMRs. Patient Portals allow patients to manage their own healthcare as well as communication with the doctor. They typically have on-line billing, scheduling options with pre-visit forms, importation of referral letters, management of non-prescription drugs, and also input for prescription drugs, lab results etc plus some real-time communication.
The High Ridge practice is moving in this direction and has some of these features in a manual input type way but any non-healthcare web design company could put this type of site up. It is probably "boiler plate" as there are many web companies providing this type of service. Look at Microsoft Healthvault or Revolution to see a fuller definition. It may have some value for that practice but I doubt they are making any money off it with the low fee for it and the amount of management to return it would provide.
I just did a little more research, High Ridge seems to be using Practice Partner by McKesson. I guess my standards are higher! I would have expected something better from those guys !!!! Maybe they are taking the line of least resistance, at the price they charge I would throw in a web site as well if the doc thought that was a portal !!
I like Patient Portals and I think they are useful to both patients and providers. However, Revolution Health and MS HealthVault and Google Health are not Patient Portals. These products, known as PHRs, are not connected to a particular EHR in real time. They are not a simplified, bi-directional, patient view of the physician electronic chart. I never understood the usefulness of these things other than maybe for someone that wants to assemble all their records from all providers in one place. Presumably, it affords the patient better management of their condition.
So PHRs are about record keeping. Patient Portals are about patient/physician communications. There is plenty ROI for both parties in the Patient Portal model and it seems to be slowly spreading.
I just saw one today at an Orthopedic Surgeon office that used to be on paper two years ago. Now he has eCW Portal on two Dell laptops, bolted to mobile tables, in the waiting room. You can do your own Hx in the waiting room, which is nice and all the usual communications are available from home too. They got eCW and are trying to use everything. Even the camera at the front desk.
What I found humorous though was that the cart with today's paper charts was still right there at reception and the doctor walked into the exam room, not with a tablet, but with a pen and a little piece of paper. What I found totally hilarious is that my kid found a way to get on facebook from the Patient Portal kiosk and got yelled at by the receptionist.
It's a journey.....
Margalit Gur-Arie
My brand new Blog: On Healthcare Technology
Probably some kid will figure out the killer application for MD offices.
Lowell Kleinman, MD www.drkleinman.com www.old-fashionedhousecalls.com
As you also work for a big company like Mckesson I guess it is to your advantage to sell schlock!
elidan:These products, known as PHRs, are not connected to a particular EHR in real time
Yes Microsoft Healthvault can be - obviously yours is not.
elidan:They are not a simplified, bi-directional, patient view of the physician electronic chart.
Yes Healthvault can be - obviously yours is not.
elidan:someone that wants to assemble all their records from all providers in one place. Presumably, it affords the patient better management of their condition.
Bingo!
elidan:So PHRs are about record keeping. Patient Portals are about patient/physician communications
Almost - patient portals are the frontside for the PHR - look at what they are called "portal" - What is a portal - a doorway or from the first sentence in Wikipedia "A web portal, also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way." A patient portal is a web page that gives ACCESS to information from the diverse sources such as the patient, the labs, the pharmacy and doctors (notice the s)
elidan:You can do your own Hx in the waiting room, which is nice and all the usual communications are available from home too
This is more a KIOSK function rather than a portal. A Kisok that can be accessed remotely.
elidan:my kid found a way to get on facebook from the Patient Portal kiosk
There you said it Kiosk - and more schlock, so bad your kid circumvented the security - let me tell you it is likely it would take me about 10 minutes to get into ALL the patient records in the EMR from this Kiosk.
A patient portal can be accessed securely from anywhere and by any health profession that the patient allows. The informatuion is owned and managed by the patient - hense the "patient" in patient portal - it is not a records portal or an EMR portal or a doctors portal -it is patient!!!
I hate this dumbing down of terms to compensate for understanding and good software programming !!!!!
elidan:Revolution Health and MS HealthVault and Google Health are not Patient Portals
This most certaining are!
A PHR may be managed by them, another company, an EMR and may not even have anyhting to do with the Internet or a computer !!!!!
Medscribbler has a Kiosk module available for waiting rooms. It is touch screen orientated but can operate from a keyboard or Tablet pen as well (recognizes a signed last name to the DB to find the patient) It can NOT be broken into or disabled - it is just plain impossible, even for a highly educated techie.
Alright, Mike. For the umpteenth time: I do not work for a large company. I do not work in sales or marketing. I do not have any agenda or financial interests when I post here. Everything I write is my own personal opinion and nothing more. You are most welcome to disagree with my views, heck, I disagree with my views sometimes, but please stop trying to assign them to some sinister industry interest.
Now to the point, Healthvault accepts CCD and CCR. You can transfer data that fits into CCD or CCR from a physician EHR to Healthvault.
You cannot go to Healthvault and browse your chart. You cannot go to Healthvault and send your doctor an email. You cannot go to Healthvault and make an appointment with your doctor, or request a refill. Healthvault, like other independent PHRs are for managing your records.
If you want to communicate with your doctor, make/request appointments, pay your bills, browse your chart, update your information or actually check in, you have to log into something that is integrated specifically with the EHR/PMS that your doctor is using. This "something" is usually referred to as a Patient Portal.
Portions of the Patient Portal can be used in a kiosk in the waiting room, or you can just give them a laptop with a browser that is only allowed to go to the Portal URL. Alternatively, you can connect to specific kiosk software like Phreesia.
I did not invent the terminology either.