Benefits of a patient portal for community health

Healthcare patient portals are the best way to elevate the quality of your healthcare practice and increase patient satisfaction. They’re versatile for different needs, such as community healthcare center patient portals being able to provide patient care for virtually any user and ease access. 

Healthcare patient portals grant clients the ability to access payment, and appointment scheduling information and provide them with transparency in viewing and editing data where eligible. Patients can feel confident in viewing upcoming appointments and previous and current bills and utilize various other features. 

Considering approximately over 200,000 appointments are booked online in one month, healthcare patient portals are the perfect way to bridge the gap between patients and practitioners. The online software allows for high engagement and connections while still providing all the benefits of in-person care, and its convenience is something everyone can appreciate and love.

Depending on the type of patient portal you provide, there are various ways to make the most use of it. To help you, we have collated some tips on how to use them for online patient care best:

• Have a device - First and foremost, you need to have a device compatible with the patient portal. For example, these devices are primarily laptops and mobile devices, but you should make sure to check. 
• Wi-Fi - You must have a solid connection to use the patient portal - especially if you’re video calling or conferencing patients through it. High broadband connections will ensure that you and your patients are receiving the highest level of care when it comes to online interactions. 
• Register - You will need to register your account with a secure password, with authentication required to conduct basic tasks. Patient portals should have customer support to help you if you get stuck.
• Child access - If you have a child under 18, you may be given access to their account, which you will also need to register.‍
• Spend time navigating - Portals should be pretty easy to use and clearly outlined. Practitioners may get in touch with patients through the portal with reminders, and these are likely to pop up when you log in or if you allow for push notifications. Do not worry if this seems overwhelming at first. Taking the effort to look around will let you get the hang of things in no time.

Community health center patient portals and community hospital portals for patients are some of the most effective ways to provide care for your patient and your team. They provide immense benefits to maintain patient health records, including:

• Patient engagement - Patients can use the portal to request and schedule appointments, video conference, call, message, and access medical bills and history. This allows them to engage and connect in most business processes and in a way that will enable you to ensure your staff is focused on urgent healthcare needs. 
• A streamlined process - Because everything is electronic with online community healthcare portals, registration forms, and other administrative tasks, it can be conducted in a way that ensures high efficiency. For example, your staff can focus on the patient in front of them instead of having to process forms and make sure patients adhere to protocol. With online portals, this is all automated, resulting in more cost savings for your healthcare practice. 
• More focus on patients - Online portals grant clients access to information quickly and electronically, so you don’t have to configure how patients can access charts or records as it’s done for you. This means you can work on other aspects of your practice, such as developing and improving standards of care for your patients and that they get the highest quality of treatment. 
• Improve patient-practitioner relationships - It’s common for online portals to provide 24hour access for clients to message and communicate with their practitioners and physicians - which means that healthcare professional relationships can be strengthened. Patients can review information and notes and ask any questions that come up, with practitioners having a more remarkable ability to be able to answer at any time. 
• Have successful clinical outcomes - Clinical outcomes can significantly improve with the implementation of patient portals, as patients can request appointments, prescription refills and can be easily referred. A lot of processes become self-service, which is beneficial when they can allow for greater compliance.
• Increases medical workflow - Online portals allow for an integrated workflow of various business systems and processes, which enables a high continuity of care across practices and patients. This means patient information can be kept up to date and the proper healthcare standards are in place. ‍
• Reminders - Patient portals can provide free automated reminders to reduce no-shows, which can be costly. Patients are more likely to remember their appointments, as well as have options to reschedule.

As outlined, many benefits complement patient portals, with one of them is improving patient outcomes. This is always a common goal in healthcare practices and one that should be celebrated when caring for the needs of patients. Improving clinical outcomes can increase the likelihood of success for your business and strengthen relationships with your clients in working towards effective treatment. 

With patient portals that incorporate tailored reminders and educational resources, amongst other great features, there can be a significant increase in psychobehavioural outcomes. For example, because patient portals encourage and promote self-efficacy, this, in conjunction with decision-making and knowledge processes, allows for improved patient outcomes. Products also include higher medication adherence, in addition to preventive service use. The impact of patient portals also improved some clinical outcomes in glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and weight loss. 

Final thoughts

Patient portals allow for patients to access a variety of features conveniently that altogether improve your relationship. With a proven increase in clinical outcomes, patient portals are the perfect way for you to transition towards a practice that consistently prioritizes the needs of your patients. You and your healthcare team can focus on needs attending to while being assured that your patients can easily adhere to and uphold healthcare standards provided regularly with in-person care. 

Many healthcare businesses, such as Carepatron, offer healthcare software to successfully and efficiently execute a portal for your patients. With appointment scheduling, video conferencing, and payment aspects, as well as medical billing and coding features, your business can see tremendous success across all business processes. 

We hope this has developed your understanding of community health center patient portals and their immense benefits that can significantly elevate the quality of your healthcare practice. We look forward to seeing what you will do!

 Further reading:

• U.S. Healthcare Is Ripe For Transformation: What Leaders Need To Know About Cloud Technologies 
• Patient portals - an online tool for your health