JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Patient portals have been introduced in several countries in the last few decades. Despite worldwide ambition, nationwide portals are rare, and studies about their use are limited. Finland is one of the forerunners in developing nationwide health data systems. A nationwide patient portal (My Kanta) for viewing electronic prescriptions and health data has been phased in starting in 2010.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to investigate among Finnish pharmacy customers what functions people use in My Kanta, their perceptions of the service’s usability, and how satisfied users are with My Kanta as a whole.

Methods:

In spring 2019, questionnaires (N=2866) were distributed from 18 different-sized pharmacies across mainland Finland to adult pharmacy customers purchasing prescription medicines for themselves or for their child aged under 18 years. Questions were asked about the use and usability of the patient portal by means of structured and Likert-scale questions. Statistical analysis included frequencies, means, medians, Chi-square tests, Fisher’s exact tests, and Kruskal-Wallis tests.

Results:

In total, 994 (34.7%) completed questionnaires were returned. The most used My Kanta functions were browsing prescription information (781/802, 97.4%), records of healthcare visits (772/802, 96.3%), and results of laboratory tests and x-ray examinations (722/804, 89.8%). Most users (558/793, 70.4%) had also requested a prescription renewal using the service. My Kanta was seen as easy to log into (772/816, 94.6%) and clear to view (709/808, 87.7%). Most users considered the service useful for monitoring their health information (753/813, 92.6%) and that it provides a good overall picture of the medicines prescribed for them (711/813, 87.5%). The majority of users found the information recorded about them easy to understand (684/800, 85.5%). Of users, 16.7% (135/807) disagreed that the information they were looking for was easy to find. Two-thirds (501/814, 61.5%) of users did not know whether it is easy to see in which pharmacies and healthcare units their prescription information has been viewed, and over a third (306/805, 38.0%) did not know whether it is easy to see in which healthcare units their health information has been processed. A fifth of respondents (181/805, 22.5%) feared that unauthorized persons might view their information and that their electronically saved prescription and health information might disappear (180/810, 22.2%). Of users, 16.1% (129/799) would like to receive guidance in My Kanta use. The vast majority of users (719/804, 89.4%) were satisfied with the service as a whole.

Conclusions:

Pharmacy customers are satisfied with the nationwide patient portal. It is mostly used for browsing e-prescriptions and medical records. On the whole, the usability of the service is good, but users need to be better informed about data privacy and security issues, while guidance on using the portal also needs to be improved.