Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 21, 2025
Date Accepted: May 16, 2025
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Towards normalising inclusive design: Uncovering patient experiences of a web portal in a dental hospital
ABSTRACT
Background:
Patient portals can improve care delivery and efficient use of healthcare resources. Barriers to uptake can hinder improvements, particularly for older people (>65 years) and those who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD).
Objective:
Our aim was to evaluate the usability and overall patient experience of a patient portal, with a specific focus on CALD and older people.
Methods:
A mixed methods study at a dental hospital included a patient experience survey that was administered before (2111 patients) and after (2445 patients) portal implementation, semi-structured interviews (18 patients), usability survey (235 patients) and a scenario-based usability evaluation (17 patients).
Results:
Younger participants (<65 years old) reported that the portal was easy to use and simple. However, design problems, including inadequate incorporation of inclusivity, was found to more often limit usability for older and CALD people. Usability evaluations indicated that all participants could log in with the one-time password, but most were assisted. Only 3 of 17 participants were able to send a message to the clinic. Other usability problems identified were focused on display, content, layout, functionality and navigation categories.
Conclusions:
The use of inclusive design principles when designing patient portals is necessary for successfully engaging all patients. Our study highlights the importance of normalising inclusive designs in patient portals to ensure that priority populations such as such as older and CALD people are not marginalised by design.
Citation
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Copyright
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