High Volume Portal Usage Impacts Practice Resources

Abstract

Patient portals have both patient-centered benefits and substantial impacts on practices. Successful implementation of a patient portal can be achieved with a comprehensive team approach. Increased portal usage results in high-volume patient secure messaging. We describe the impact of high patient message volume on our fee-for-service academic family medicine practice. Practice adaptations are necessary to manage volume, length, and complexity of messages. Dedicated staff with specialized training to handle patient messages and ample protected time for providers are important to minimize clerical burden associated with patient portal use.