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Ideas on Ways to Promote the Patient Portal?

Patient Self Service

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plooney

(@plooney)

Posts: 38

Trusted Member

Topic starter

Hello everyone, my name is Patrick Looney and I work for the Gonzaba Medical Group in San Antonio, Texas. We have been using the portal for over 6 months, and have handed out thousands of pin numbers. However, we only have about 475 active portal users. Regardless, I was hoping to receive some feedback on ways to promote the portal. Flyers, posters in the lobby, voice recording during patient's who call the clinic and are put on hold, flyers in exam rooms and waiting areas, kiosks in lobby's etc. Any successful ideas out there? We are also considering a mailing to those that have received pins but have not actually created an account too.

Posted : May 9, 2013 4:14 am

chrishuff1

(@chrishuff1)

Posts: 201

Reputable Member

Sounds bad, but force em to. If they want anything from your practice they have to get it from the portal...It'll help you be paperless and get them to start using it, and hopefully they'll see the benefits and use it more often?

Posted : May 10, 2013 12:04 am

sborchardt

(@sborchardt)

Posts: 218

Reputable Member

We also are having a hard time gaining numbers. We have staffed a portal sign up by our registration and it has helped, but alot of our older patient don't have an e-mail or access to a computer. We are looking at Stage 2 and wondering how to increase our number by 2014. Any ideas are welcome!

Posted : May 10, 2013 1:02 am

Anonymous

(@Anonymous)

Posts: 0

New Member Guest

Good morning,

We currently have over over 4000 patients registered and verified on our Kryptiq Patient Portal (www.myoumedicine.com).

That is approx 37% of the total patients who have been given a PIN.

I believe it simply comes down to engagement by PROVIDERS; not front desk staff, or flyers, or other fluff.

The emphasis a provider puts on a practice, habit, or product is directly linked to the priority a patient puts on its importance.

That being said, your patient demographic is very important in the outcome of technology based healthcare. Smile

William Luttrell

OU Physicians

Posted : June 5, 2013 11:49 pm

plooney

(@plooney)

Posts: 38

Trusted Member

Topic starter

Good morning,

We currently have over over 4000 patients registered and verified on our Kryptiq Patient Portal (www.myoumedicine.com).

That is approx 37% of the total patients who have been given a PIN.

I believe it simply comes diown to engagement by PROVIDERS; not front desk staff, or flyers, or other fluff.

The emphasis a provider puts on a practice, habit, or product is directly linked to the priority a patient puts on its importance.

That being said, your patient demographic is very important in the outcome of technology based healthcare. Smile

William Luttrell

OU Physicians

Posted : June 6, 2013 1:23 am

Anonymous

(@Anonymous)

Posts: 0

New Member Guest

ChrisHuff1 = +1

Posted : June 6, 2013 1:35 am

plooney

(@plooney)

Posts: 38

Trusted Member

Topic starter

William and everyone else that responded, thanks so much for sharing your experiences. I agree that provider envolvment and encouragement is absolutely essential. As for our patient demographics, we typically specialize in elderly patients, which, as some of y'all have mentioned, makes it much more difficult to accomplish. You would almost think that if we were able to prove our general age population of patients, that there would be some sort of leeway provided to us. Anyhow, we'll keep plugging away.

I recently noticed that version 6 is out, which we will be upgrading to hopefully in a few weeks. One thing that looks nice is the instant patient enrollment at time of care. It's appears to be very simple and quick, which has been half the battle for us...actually getting a patient to enroll after providing them with the pin. So the pin generation will go away. With that said though, there is a MU measure stating that at least 50% of your patients need to be offered the ability to access their information online. And a second measure is that 15% of those actually need to actively log in and view data etc. My question is this. By taking away the pin generation via the new instant enrollment, are we postively killing two birds with one stone now? Meaning, if we instantly enroll our patients, then it would appear that not only are we providing them access (one measure), but also getting them to actively view data (a second measure). So this seems to solve that issue, correct?

Posted : June 6, 2013 7:17 am

Mitch Kwiatkowski

(@mitch)

Posts: 111

Estimable Member

Having access, viewing/downloading, and sending messages are all separate objectives for MU and can't all be met through registration alone. Registering patients meets one objective (providing access). You have to show the patient has logged in and viewed information to meet a second. And then you have to show that a patient generated and sent a message to the provider for a third. The second and third require patient action.

As far as promoting the portal, our experience has shown that age doesn't matter much, and it shouldn't. Other factors (e.g., socio-economic) can be challenging, but it's possible to transcend those hurdles. You have to market the portal on several levels, and that means targeting demographic groups differently - you have to be able to show how the portal has value for any given patient. If you are able to explain why the practice wants a patient to use the portal (not just because it's required) and how the patient can benefit from using it, success will come. A cookie cutter flyer or poster won't do the trick. The 30-something mother of three has different portal needs than an 80 year-old patient who is managing multiple chronic conditions. If you create different materials for different types of patients and distribute them at various points of the visit (front desk, rooming, care management interaction, physician visit), the information is more relevant and meaningful.

Provider involvement is valuable, but we found that staff (front desk, medical assistants, and care managers) are the most successful at getting patients to register. Once patients are signed up, the practice needs to engage them and keep the lines of communication open. That's where provider involvement is critical. This can include sending lab results, visit summaries or service reminders; accepting refill requests; following care management; or sharing a newsletter. The most difficult hurdle for us has been physician use, and we have stay on top of our practices. This is definitely not something you can implement and grow in auto-pilot mode.

Posted : June 6, 2013 9:39 pm

plooney

(@plooney)

Posts: 38

Trusted Member

Topic starter

Mitch, thanks for your valuable input. We will definitely consider all of these options. Your input, as well as input from the others, comes at a good time, as I'm in the process of setting up an internal meeting to review the portal, its current successes and failures etc. Thanks again!

And if anyone else out there would like to share their wisdom, please do. This is all really good stuff and I hope to meet some of you at the next CHUG in San Francisco.

Posted : June 7, 2013 1:41 am

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