Meaningful Use of IT has made patient portals an essential technology for patients as well as providers. Whether you are a small clinician or a big healthcare provider or a patient, an effective patient portal has become indispensable for everyone as it is the most convenient way of delivering and receiving high quality patient care with more ease and efficiency.

It is an easy and secure way of communicating with patients, giving updates on patient health information, coordinating patient appointments, managing chronic conditions; and sending/receiving information such as forms, documentation, updates, and emails.

This paper examines the implementation of patient portals and their impact on health care delivery. It is intended to inform how a well-designed patient portal can help to improve an organization’s administrative efficiency and enhance productivity by reducing phone calls and paperwork, enabling electronic communications, and cutting costs on printing and postage. Following are the main aspects of patient portal which help providers to get desirable outcomes:

Engaging patients as consumers helps to transform patients’ perception of the healthcare enterprise as patients become more involved in their own healthcare. It promotes more personal relationships, and emphasizes an active exchange between patient and provider. The result is a new level of trust, and interactive collaboration with each member of the health system’s network which in turn increases the credibility of the provider.

One of the most important features of a patient portal is that the providers can make their patients access their health information easily anytime they want. With the support of mobile devices, the Patient Portal helps patients access and manage their healthcare processes through notifications and various other features with the ease of sitting in their home and offices.

Portals boost patient engagement; an effective patient engagement increases patient satisfaction which is the most important factor in improving productivity.

Let’s quickly summarize how portals can make patients engaged and satisfied:

A Patient Portal is an effective method to connect your staff and patients in a cost effective way. Patient portal acts as a powerful tool that helps to streamline the office workflows and functions and reduce practice inefficiencies. Providers should implement a well-designed patient portal to manage their patient inflow and centralize patient database allowing physician, hospital portal users and patients to set their own appointments and schedules. It requires less office staff to handle intake of paperwork and answer phones. Therefore, providers can focus more on their core functions and increase the quality of their services and productivity.