Patient Portal Messaging for Asynchronous Virtual Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Analysis.
JMIR Hum Factors
; 9(2): e35187, 2022 May 05.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1834181
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, patient portals and their message platforms allowed remote access to health care. Utilization patterns in patient messaging during the COVID-19 crisis have not been studied thoroughly. In this work, we propose characterizing patients and their use of asynchronous virtual care for COVID-19 via a retrospective analysis of patient portal messages.OBJECTIVE:
This study aimed to perform a retrospective analysis of portal messages to probe asynchronous patient responses to the COVID-19 crisis.METHODS:
We collected over 2 million patient-generated messages (PGMs) at Mayo Clinic during February 1 to August 31, 2020. We analyzed descriptive statistics on PGMs related to COVID-19 and incorporated patients' sociodemographic factors into the analysis. We analyzed the PGMs on COVID-19 in terms of COVID-19-related care (eg, COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 tests and results) and other health issues (eg, appointment cancellation, anxiety, and depression).RESULTS:
The majority of PGMs on COVID-19 pertained to COVID-19 symptom self-assessment (42.50%) and COVID-19 tests and results (30.84%). The PGMs related to COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 test results had dynamic patterns and peaks similar to the newly confirmed cases in the United States and in Minnesota. The trend of PGMs related to COVID-19 care plans paralleled trends in newly hospitalized cases and deaths. After an initial peak in March, the PGMs on issues such as appointment cancellations and anxiety regarding COVID-19 displayed a declining trend. The majority of message senders were 30-64 years old, married, female, White, or urban residents. This majority was an even higher proportion among patients who sent portal messages on COVID-19.CONCLUSIONS:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients increased portal messaging utilization to address health care issues about COVID-19 (in particular, symptom self-assessment and tests and results). Trends in message usage closely followed national trends in new cases and hospitalizations. There is a wide disparity for minority and rural populations in the use of PGMs for addressing the COVID-19 crisis.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Observational study
Language:
English
Journal:
JMIR Hum Factors
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
35187
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