Growth of Secure Messaging Through a Patient Portal as a Form of Outpatient Interaction across Clinical Specialties.

OBJECTIVE: Patient portals are online applications that allow patients to interact with healthcare organizations. Portal adoption is increasing, and secure messaging between patients and healthcare providers is an emerging form of outpatient interaction. Research about portals and messaging has focused on medical specialties. We characterized adoption of secure messaging and the contribution of messaging to outpatient interactions across diverse clinical specialties after broad portal deployment. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study at Vanderbilt University Medical Center examined use of patient-initiated secure messages and clinic visits in the three years following full deployment of a patient portal across adult and pediatric specialties. We measured the proportion of outpatient interactions (i.e., messages plus clinic visits) conducted through secure messaging by specialty over time. Generalized estimating equations measured the likelihood of message-based versus clinic outpatient interaction across clinical specialties. RESULTS: Over the study period, 2,422,114 clinic visits occurred, and 82,159 unique portal users initiated 948,428 messages to 1,924 recipients. Medicine participated in the most message exchanges (742,454 messages; 78.3% of all messages sent), followed by surgery (84,001; 8.9%) and obstetrics/gynecology (53,424; 5.6%). The proportion of outpatient interaction through messaging increased from 12.9% in 2008 to 33.0% in 2009 and 39.8% in 2010 (p<0.001). Medicine had the highest proportion of outpatient interaction conducted through messaging in 2008 (23.3% of outpatient interactions in medicine). By 2010, this proportion was highest for obstetrics/gynecology (83.4%), dermatology (71.6%), and medicine (56.7%). Growth in likelihood of message-based interaction was greater for anesthesiology, dermatology, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, and psychiatry than for medicine (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates rapid adoption of secure messaging across diverse clinical specialties, with messaging interactions exceeding face-to-face clinic visits for some specialties. As patient portal and secure messaging adoption increase beyond medicine and primary care, research is needed to understand the implications for provider workload and patient care.

Case report: patient portal versus telephone recruitment for a surgical research study.

BACKGROUND: Patient portal adoption has rapidly increased over the last decade. Most patient portal research has been done in primary care or medical specialties, and few studies have examined their use in surgical patients or for recruiting research subjects. No known studies have compared portal messaging with other approaches of recruitment. OBJECTIVES: This case report describes our experience with patient portal versus telephone recruitment for a study involving long-term follow up of surgical patients. METHODS: Participants were recruited for a study of recurrence after ventral hernia repair through telephone calls and patient portal messaging based on registration status with the portal. Potential subjects who did not have a portal account or whose portal messages were returned after 5 days were called. The proportion of participants enrolled with each method was determined and demographics of eligible patients, portal users, and participants were compared. RESULTS: 1359 patients were eligible for the hernia study, and enrollment was 35% (n=465). Most participants were recruited by telephone (84%, n=391); 16% (n=74) were recruited through portal messaging. Forty-four percent of eligible participants had a registered portal account, and 14% of users responded to the recruitment message. Portal users were younger than non-users (55 vs. 58 years, p<0.001); participants recruited through the portal versus telephone were also younger (54 vs. 59 years, p=0.001). Differences in the sex and racial distributions between users and non-users and between portal and telephone recruits were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Portal versus telephone recruitment for a surgical research study demonstrated modest portal recruitment rates and similar demographics between recruitment methods. Published studies of portal-only recruitment in primary care or medical-specialty patient populations have demonstrated higher enrollment rates, but this case study demonstrates that portal recruitment for research studies in the surgical population is feasible, and it offers convenience to patients and researchers.

Breast cancer incidence and mortality in Auckland, 1981-6.

Age standardised incidence and mortality rates were calculated for breast cancer for the Auckland area. Incidence of female breast cancer for 1981-4 was significantly higher in Auckland compared with all New Zealand, with a standardised incidence ratio of 1.11. While total incidence was the same across the three Auckland districts, there were wide discrepancies in mortality rates. Women in Takapuna had a far lower risk of dying of breast cancer compared with all New Zealand for 1981-6 and had a standardised mortality ratio of 0.86. Central Auckland and south Auckland women had increased risks--1.10 and 1.18 respectively. Similar discrepancies were evident in the important 45-64 age group. Possible reasons for the reported differences are discussed with socioeconomic factors seeming the most likely agency.

Asthma mortality by neighbourhood of domicile.

Asthma mortality in New Zealand from 1976 to 1985 was examined, covering the years of an epidemic of asthma deaths. Using Reinken et al's socioeconomic classification of neighbourhoods in New Zealand, asthma death rates were compared in areas of high, middle and low social need. There was a marked difference in mortality between the highest and the lowest areas. Overall 2.3 times as many persons died from asthma in low socioeconomic areas as from high socioeconomic areas. The increase in asthma deaths in New Zealand during the late 1970's appears to have only occurred in middle and low socioeconomic groups. The neighbourhood measures of need used in this study are clearly predictive of disease and may provide an alternative way of examining the health of communities to the more formal but narrowly based occupational socioeconomic scales.

Dietary intake of advanced cancer patients.

A state registered dietitian assessed the voluntary dietary intake of 13 advanced cancer inpatients on one ward of St. Christopher's Hospice for five consecutive days. There were 11 females, two males; median age 74 years (range 56 to 83). Two patients died on the fourth day of the study. A partially individualised weighed technique was used. Standard sized scoops and spoons were used to serve the food in small, medium or large standard portions (depending on appetite) and were weighed as served. Individual plate waste (by weight) was subtracted to give estimated individual intake. Foods provided by visitors was not included. The median and range of individual mean daily intakes (estimated) were: energy 5760 (938-8945) kJ, 1376 (224-2137) kcal; protein 44 (11-86) g; fat 52 (9-93) g; carbohydrate 169 (21-194) g; calcium 748 (268-1457) mg; iron 4.8 (0.5-21.0) mg; dietary fibre 5.0 (0.5-21.0) g. Compared to recommended amounts, energy, iron and dietary fibre intakes were low; calcium intake was high. Nutritional status may affect prognosis and/or subjective well-being in advanced cancer. The value of nutritional supplementation and the role of appetite stimulants in improving nutritional status needs investigation.