What is Patient Portal? - Electronic Patient Record

Patient Portal is a part of EMR / EHR. It is an online application through which providers and patients communicate with each other and is one of essential parts of Meaningful Use Criteria. 

This falls into two main categories –

1. Providing patients with direct access to some parts of their health record. 
2. Providing patient, drug to drug and disease education.

Patient portals specifically provide a mode of communication between provider and the patient. Providers issue patients, a unique username and password through which patients can access their health records.

Once a unique ID and password are issued, patient can log on the EHR through secure Web to access their medical record like; 

• Demographics
• Family History
• Immunization Record
• Allergies Record
• Health Problems
• Medication List
• Lab Results

The practice is the final authority regarding how much data should be accessed by the patient. A patient does not have access to the doctor’s records at all. They only see what the doctor wants them to see. Therefore the  physician's notes remains protected.

This saves providers time and instead of having phone calls and mails, providers can concentrate on attending the patient.

Usually it happens, when the physicians are having a huge number of patients in waiting-room, they cannot give advice or detailed information to each patient. Patient Portal with EHR / EMR has solved this problem. Patients can very easily be handed over detailed printed information of drug and disease. And this practice can be followed by other authorized staff member as well. 

Use of the patient portal is not only important for health, it also helps to control healthcare costs. A study from the Center for Information Technology Leadership at Partners Healthcare System in Boston shows that a widespread use of PHRs could save the US healthcare industry between $13 and $21 billion a year.

The successful use of electronic patient record has now started being implemented in other countries as well. London's NHS trusts are looking for new patient administration and electronic patient record systems (PAS / EPR), worth between £250 and £400 million over four years.

Similarly, Australian Government is also investing $A467 million on Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR). Under the proposed scheme, due to begin operation on July 1 2012, all Australians will have the option of registering for a PCEHR, designed to ensure medical professionals have access to comprehensive patient data.

Patient portal or PHR is therefore, a good module of EHR to be followed and implemented. It facilitates both the physicians and patients' life with an easy access of the data. With enhanced technologies and experimentation, there would be more innovations in to this project that would further bring comfort in medical world.