Houston Veterans Affairs Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX, USA; Section of Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
Houston Veterans Affairs Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX, USA; Section of Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
Healthc (Amst). 2017 Sep;5(3):81-85. doi: 10.1016/j.hjdsi.2016.08.004. Epub 2016 Oct 3.
Widespread use of health information technology (IT) could potentially increase patients' access to their health information and facilitate future goals of advancing patient-centered care. Despite having increased access to their health data, patients do not always understand this information or its implications, and digital health data can be difficult to navigate when displayed in a small-format, complex interface. In this paper, we discuss two forms of patient-facing health IT tools-patient portals and applications (apps)-and highlight how, despite several limitations of each, combining high-yield features of mobile health (mHealth) apps with portals could increase patient engagement and self-management and be more effective than either of them alone. Patient portal adoption is variable, and due to design and interface limitations and health literacy issues, many people find the portal difficult to use. Conversely, apps have experienced rapid adoption and traditionally have more consumer-friendly features with easy log-in access, real-time tracking, and simplified data display. These features make the applications more intuitive and easy-to-use than patient portals. While apps have their own limitations and might serve different purposes, patient portals could adopt some high-yield features and functions of apps that lead to engagement success with patients. We thus suggest that to improve user experience with future portals, developers could look towards mHealth apps in design, function, and user interface. Adding new features to portals may improve their use and empower patients to track their overall health and disease states. Nevertheless, both these health IT tools should be subjected to rigorous evaluation to ensure they meet their potential in improving patient outcomes.
广泛使用健康信息技术（IT）有可能增加患者获取健康信息的机会，并促进未来以患者为中心的护理目标的实现。尽管患者越来越容易获得他们的健康数据，但他们并不总是理解这些信息或其含义，并且当以小格式、复杂界面显示时，数字健康数据可能难以导航。在本文中，我们讨论了两种面向患者的健康 IT 工具-患者门户和应用程序（apps）-并强调了尽管每种工具都存在一些局限性，但将移动健康（mHealth）应用程序的高产量特征与门户相结合，可以提高患者的参与度和自我管理能力，并且比单独使用其中任何一种工具都更有效。患者门户的采用情况各不相同，由于设计和界面限制以及健康素养问题，许多人发现门户难以使用。相反，应用程序的采用速度很快，并且传统上具有更适合消费者的功能，例如易于登录访问、实时跟踪和简化的数据显示。这些功能使应用程序比患者门户更直观、易于使用。虽然应用程序有其自身的局限性，可能有不同的用途，但患者门户可以采用应用程序的一些高产量特征和功能，从而实现与患者的成功互动。因此，我们建议，为了改善未来门户的用户体验，开发人员可以在设计、功能和用户界面方面借鉴移动健康应用程序。为门户添加新功能可能会提高其使用率，并使患者能够跟踪他们的整体健康和疾病状况。然而，这两种健康 IT 工具都应该经过严格评估，以确保它们在改善患者结果方面发挥潜力。
