Patient Portal Use in Diabetes Management

Abstract

This project focuses on the use of patient portals and improvement of blood glucose levels in patient’s diagnosed with diabetes in primary care clinics. Patient portal is an online-based tool, which allows the patient various points of access to their medical records including the patients list of medications with instruction on dosage, lab values that were ordered for the patient, and dates of upcoming appointments. Portals also allow communication between provider and patient, which extends education opportunities. Each portal comes with an email for the patient to ask questions that they may have, and it also allows the provider to communicate with the patient on any changes in the patient, the patient’s appointment times, and even blood glucose levels that were drawn at the clinic. Portals are largely driven by financial for providers as part of federal US healthcare reform. Additionally, portals strive to improve consumers overall health. Results indicate use of patient portal is associated with better diabetes self-management. Patient with the motivation, knowledge, skills, and confidence to become actively involved in their healthcare have better health related outcomes. Patients who are non-users of portals had consistently higher blood glucose values when compared to patients who participated in portals.