My colleague and fellow PCHIT advocate and blog co-author, Joe Kimura, MD, of Atrius Health / Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates steered me to this article and asked me to take a look, which I am happy to do here for PCHIT readers:
I’m reviewing the article through the lens of my own experience using a version of the same patient portal product that UPMC is using, MyChart, produced by Epic Systems, Inc., although the paper does not explicitly mention what product they are using. I think this makes a difference in the interpretation.
The other thing that makes a critical difference in interpretation is the environment in which the product is being rolled out. I will get to that later.
The study encompasses the performance of ten focus groups involving a total of 39 diabetic patients who were portal naive and then portal experienced, as the groups were performed in two waves. This is excellent – a view onto the experience of a patient portal experienced patient is needed in the literature.
The other excellent thing in my mind is the voice of the patient throughout. I wish that the medical publishing industry would become Web2.0 savvy and allow authors to post video vignettes of the patients’ voices on YouTube or something similar. I give a presentation from some of Group Health’s focus group work, and the video is very powerful.
Think of this example:
When I start talking nutrition [with the provider]…it’s almost like I’m not saying anything r I’m just saying ‘blah, blah, blah.’ It’s like she’s not even listening at that point.
