JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, patient portals represent an important method for remote access to healthcare. It opens an opportunity to understand portal messaging by patients for addressing COVID-19 crisis. In this work, we propose to characterize patients and their use of asynchronous virtual care for COVID-19 via a retrospective analysis of patient portal messages.

Objective:

To perform a retrospective analysis of portal messages to probe patient asynchronous response to the COVID-19 crisis

Methods:

We collected over 2 million patient-generated messages (PGMs) at Mayo Clinic during February 1 - August 31, 2020. We performed descriptive statistics on PGMs on COVID-19 and incorporated patients’ sociodemographic factors into the analysis. We analyzed the PGMs on COVID-19 in terms of COVID-19 related care (e.g., COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 tests and results) and other health issues (e.g., 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 on COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 tests and results had dynamic patterns with two peaks similar to the newly confirmed cases in the US and Minnesota. The trend of PGMs on COVID-19 care plan is in good agreement with that of newly hospitalized cases and deaths. After an initial increase in March, the PGMs on issues such as cancellations and anxiety regarding COVID-19 had a declining trend. Patients who were 30-64 years old, married, female, white, or urban residents were more likely to send portal messages. The messaging disparity was exacerbated among patients who sent portal messages on COVID-19.

Conclusions:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients increased portal messaging utilization to address healthcare issues about COVID-19 (particularly, symptom self-assessment and tests and results). The portal messages on COVID-19 could reflect the overall development of COVID-19 and its impact on patients over time. The use disparity of patient populations indicates an opportunity to increase patient engagement in patient portals for minority and rural populations for addressing COVID-19 crisis.