Consumer use of digital portals remains infrequent

When it comes to patient and digital healthcare portals, sign-up is higher than actual use.

Today, half of all consumers (52%) have been offered access to a digital healthcare portal, compared with 43% in 2014, says new research from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

But even though more consumers now have access to a digital portal with self-service web tools to access their medical records or health benefits, communicate with doctors, book appointments and check laboratory tests, among other transactions, less than 30% are using portals. Only 28% of consumers with access to a digital portal provided by their health insurer or health system used the portal to view their medical records in the past year.

There are some highly active users. Among consumers that did use portals, 10% did so at least six times in the last year compared with 16% that did so three to five times annually. “Almost one quarter of the individuals offered access to their online medical record accessed their data three or more times in the past year,” the national coordinator says.

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