Patient portals are one of the vital tools needed in the modern health
toolkit. Equipping patients access to their medical records, test
results, and communication with their healthcare providers is the most
effective way to encourage engagement. By centralizing healthcare
information and making it widely accessible, patient portals enable
patients to take an active role in their health management and reduce
the burden on healthcare providers, thereby increasing staff
availability. Patient portals leverage technology upon which patients
can schedule an appointment, access a copy of their lab results, and
exchange messages with a clinician from their homes.
Now that the use of smartphones is widespread, mobile accessibility is
a must for patient portals. Patients have learned to open their mobile
phones to look at their bank balances and buy books on Amazon. So,
they expect to open their phones, look at their healthcare data,
communicate with providers, and pull up test results whenever
possible. Good portal design takes these small moments seriously –
when someone is standing in the grocery line, for example, they can
look at the advice for losing weight, or when someone has a minute at
the bus stop, they can escalate the issue with a nurse or check a test
result. Mobile accessibility enhances convenience, patient engagement,
and multichannel engagement. Mobile accessibility is critical to the
ability of patient portals to reach a broad population, including
those with no traditional computer access.
This article will showcase how a custom patient portal is built for
mobile accessibility. It will describe the key features needed for a
mobile-responsive portal, the importance of customization, and the
challenges that healthcare providers might encounter. Incorporating
mobile access into patient portals will open up a new pathway to
improving communication between patients and providers, increasing
efficiency in workflow, and improving patient satisfaction.
On the move, vexed by delay, or simply seeking a convenient break from their business or personal tasks, mobile access to a patient portal gives patients a ready and recently available way to access their health information, schedule appointments, communicate with their doctors or other care team members … without having to be ‘at their desk’. Suddenly, that health task – whether refilling a prescription, scheduling an appointment, or checking on a laboratory result – becomes as easy as checking an app on your phone, and overall patient experience improves.
As an example designed with mobile function in mind, these portals increase patient engagement by providing a user-friendly personal portal to practice information, becoming handy, on-the-go resources for patients to check their particulars, access secure messaging, and communicate with care teams. Mobile-friendly patient portals allow patients and medical teams to exchange information with one another in a secure and convenient manner. Patients who can easily interact with their medical information and teams via mobile devices will likely stay more connected to the care plan. If patients can be in frequent contact and get immediate notifications about their chronic conditions, they will be more proactive about their health and exercise self-care. In an ideal setting, a mobile-enabled personal portal will also help prevent a major disease progression by increasing the patient’s engagement for better care results.
For older patients, mobile-accessible patient portals help bridge the growing divide between elderly patients and more traditional, desktop-based electronic medical records. These patients might not have regular access to a computer but are increasingly using smartphones and tablets. A mobile portal can be a convenient way for them to keep up with their health care. For rural patients and patients in other medically underserved areas, a portal can represent a way to interact with their providers without direct physical access to key healthcare information. Mobile portals that look good across devices help to address healthcare access gaps.
A mobile-responsive design is necessary for custom patient portals to provide the same easy-to-use experience on all screen sizes and across devices. Whether a patient accesses a portal from a smartphone, a tablet, or a desktop screen, the site automatically rebuilds itself, making it easy to see and resulting in smooth navigation and functionality. Mobile-responsive portals drastically improve patient satisfaction by building an easy-to-use interface. Poorly designed mobile sites, which commonly force users to zoom in and rearrange the content to read and navigate, frustrate patients. When the patient portal automatically adjusts to provide an easy-to-navigate and legible interface, users won’t be slowed down by technical difficulties. Regardless of the device used to access a doctor’s office, a mobile-responsive portal can ensure patients access the resources and information they need for their health.
Sending and receiving truly protected, HIPAA-compliant messaging in patient portals that web browsers on mobile devices can now access makes sense. It’s healing for patients who might not otherwise touch ‘base’ with a provider; it gives them a chance to ask questions for which the healthcare system has failed to provide clear answers, report fluctuations in a symptom that haven’t been moveable yet, or to procure a refill of a needed medication. It makes good business sense, too – communications can flow faster – and it shields the healthcare organization from the burdens of responding to imperfect HIPAA-compliant communication. More importantly, un-vetted browser-based communication opens up wider opportunities for a data breach while bringing back the days of the reprimanding finger-wag at the classroom’s door.
Patients can access this mobile-connect portal to make, reschedule, or cancel appointments from their phones. This reduces the number of phone calls or steps required to see a provider in person. This means better access to appointments closer to the service date for patients. Time slots will be visible and more feasible for patients to schedule. There can be automated reminders, allowing time to cancel or reschedule, and patients can make their appointments instead of often having to call their provider’s office. For providers, this means fewer no-shows and better patient access to service provision. Due to scheduling conflicts, less time is shaved off of an already busy schedule.
Mobile-accessible custom patient portals are the quickest to gain traction with consumers, enabling instant sharing of medical records, lab results, and prescriptions. When patients have ready access to this information, they can take control. Do you want to review the treatment plan or medication history? Easy. Need to transmit record information to another provider? You can review your information and decide on the transmission. From a documentation standpoint, giving the patient meaningful access to his or her health information helps build authentic and accurate narratives. Imparting control over health records maximizes patients’ awareness of their health needs. After all, who is more likely to follow through on a pharmaceutical regimen than a patient aware of its benefits?
Improved mobile integration with wearable devices such as fitness trackers and clinical monitors for blood pressure measurement allows the portal to collect real-time health data to manage provider-patient interactions better. Patients can sync their wearable devices with the portal to communicate their vital signs, physical activity, and other metrics with their provider. Information is crucial, and patients, given that they can post their data, assume more accountability for self-monitoring and managing their health. Providers, who can now collaborate with patients on health issues that they otherwise may not have been aware of, assume more accountability to their patients. Patients have more targeted health information and a higher-level view of their health trends, allowing providers to make treatment recommendations and schedule care more in line with patients’ needs. This improves health outcomes and moves patient care from reactive to proactive.
A custom-built patient portal with mobile access can be designed to match the provider's workflows, medical services, and communication styles and the patient population for which the portal is being built. The patient portal can be made into a more personal experience, where the design of the portal is optimized for the needs of the healthcare worker and the patient. The interface design and functionality should also be based on predefined requirements to know exactly what information the patient needs to see and how the portal should be operated to serve its purpose.
A custom patient portal is highly scalable, meaning it can grow as a healthcare provider’s needs evolve. As new mobile technology emerges and healthcare organizations add more services, a custom-built portal can be expanded with new features, integrations, and security protocols without significant disruption. This allows healthcare providers to keep up with new technologies, integrate with new health information systems, and continue to improve the patient experience over time as the need for care increases.
These mobile-accessible custom patient portals are a major improvement in patient-provider communications, ensuring that patients and providers can communicate via secure messaging, get results in real-time, and respond fast. With HIPAA-compliant messaging, patients can communicate with their healthcare providers, ask questions and get notifications promptly (for example, about a treatment plan or test results). Thanks to the mobile aspect of the portal, a patient can have contact with a healthcare team at any time and from anywhere, and both parties can act more proactively and efficiently to deliver and receive care and improve healthcare management. All in all, this kind of connectivity strengthens the patient-provider relationship and improves the quality of care.
Because mobile is the fastest-growing mode of access to patient portals, one big challenge within portals is building secure software. Mobile devices are susceptible to security problems that can harm patients. Examples include unauthorized access, malware, and phishing – all resulting in patient health information (PHI) being exposed in an unauthorized manner. Stringent security measures include encryption, proper user authentication, regular security audits, and more. Like others developing patient portals, our team must follow strict HIPAA and other applicable privacy laws. Maintaining privacy across multiple mobile platforms while providing easy access is a tricky balancing act that requires vigilance. At the same time, we need the most advanced security measures and tools available.
Designing an intuitive and easy-to-use mobile interface for the portal with its small screens, variable target audience of patients of different age groups, and tech-savviness, including older people and people with disabilities, and its immense diversity of functionality further complicates the tasks. All it takes is to look at its counterpart in American medicine. The core principles for developing a patient portal are universal design tenets of simplicity, clarity, and usability. Furthermore, easy accessibility features were designed to meet all patients’ needs without frustrating them. Striking a delicate balance between functionality and ease of use, technology must be kept human-centric and purposeful enough to meet the patient’s needs and maximize the efficiency of healthcare delivery.
It’s a technical issue, as well – to ensure that the portal works across a large number of mobile devices; operating systems, like iOS and Android, each running various versions; and browsers, meaning software such as Chrome, Safari, or Firefox with minor updates issued every few weeks. Your patient might use a 5-in Samsung Galaxy for the app, a 9-in Android tablet, an 8-in iPad mini, or a 27-in iMac desktop to access the portal. Designing cross-device compatible solutions (meaning that your portal would be optimized across a variety of devices, operating systems, and browsers seamlessly) requires significant testing, sometimes years of optimization, and continued vigilance in maintaining an update-separate standard for a variety of mobile devices.
Security is essential when designing patient portals to be accessed from a mobile device. Developers must use strong protections such as encryption to keep the health data private in transit and at rest. The robust use of 2FA is nonnegotiable when protecting health data and ensuring that only legitimate user agents can access the portal. Periodic security audits and continuous vulnerability testing must be performed to identify and eliminate any weak points to bring the portal up to HIPAA and other healthcare standards. These measures will help curtail breaches and protect patient data. Breaches in healthcare can be particularly detrimental to patients’ lives, as we’ve seen countless times.
Patients often turn to mobile devices for information, so a user-centered approach is critical in building and ensuring a mobile-accessible patient portal. A mobile-first design prioritizes rendering for handheld devices first, which ensures that the user interface renders effectively on smaller screens. All navigation features need to be simple and intuitive, including large, easy-to-press buttons and fonts that are easy to read. The portal should help patients of all ages and technical skills focus on their health and wellness by providing access to information or communication channels with no visual barriers.
Performance is critical on a mobile device, considering that patients may not have the fastest networks available, use older devices with low memory, or not have the latest software releases. Considering fast load times, performing computational tasks on users’ devices quickly and executing network actions quickly will reduce frustration among users. Users certainly would become frustrated if a page takes more than a few seconds to navigate. Data caching, image-compression algorithms, and removing unnecessary repetitive coding patterns are all methods of reducing load times. A well-optimized portal keeps users on the site longer than a poorly optimized site. It ensures they can reach critical healthcare services in a reasonable load time and flow, guaranteeing satisfaction and functionality.
A custom patient portal requires frequent updates and maintenance to remain functional, secure, and up-to-date. The healthcare industry is ever-changing, and its regulatory requirements, technology, and security threats constantly evolve. For that reason, it is essential to have regular updates to stay current with technological trends. Regular updates will address bugs, crashes, response time issues, and poor performance, and they will also introduce new features, enhancing the user experience. In turn, the updated security patches will ensure that the portal is not susceptible to any vulnerability and that patients’ information remains secure. A mobile-accessible healthcare portal requires consistent maintenance for its long-term success and reliability.
Custom patient portals that are mobile accessible for patient engagement, communications, and ease of access to medical data must be created. Add-on features such as mobile-friendly, secure messaging, and real-time data transfer; custom portals can provide an uncomplicated experience tailored to the specific requirements of clinicians and their patients. Mobile technology is constantly changing, so the success of these patient-centric platforms will remain determined by security, performance, and usability.