JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Patient portals offer the possibility to assess patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) remotely and first evidence has demonstrated their potential benefits.

Objective:

In this study, we evaluated patients’ use of a web-based patient portal where patients can complete PROMs. The portal was developed to supplement routine monitoring at the Department of Internal Medicine V in Innsbruck.

Methods:

We included patients with cancer who were already participating in the monitoring at the hospital for usage of the patient portal. Patients were introduced to the portal and asked to complete questionnaires prior to their next hospital visits. We used system access logs and three consecutive semi-structured interviews to analyze patients’ usage and evaluation of the portal.

Results:

Between July 2017 and August 2020, we approached N=122 patients for participation in the study, of whom n=102 (83.6%) consented to use the patient portal. Patients were on average 60 (SD 10.4) years old. Of n=71 patients providing data at all study time points, n=26 (36.6%) patients consistently used the portal prior to their hospital visits. During an average session, patients viewed 5.3 different pages and spent 9.4 minutes logged on to the portal. Feedback from interviews was largely positive with no patients reporting difficulties navigating the survey and 50% of patients valuing the self-management tools provided in the portal.

Conclusions:

Our study demonstrates how a patient portal can complement a routine PROM implementation at the hospital by reducing the burden of administration for the clinical team and offering an additional way for patients to engage with PROMs.