A tale of two patients – How did the pandemic impact patients’ usage of health portals

Abstract

Objective: The study examines whether patient health portal usage significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic between 2019 and 2022.
Methods: In order to measure patient usage of patient portals before and during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study used the Health Information National Trends Survey results for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. It was compared, using a least square regression model, to see if there was a significant relationship between increased use of telehealth, the usage of health portals, and the number of times seen by a regular healthcare provider.
Results: The number of patients who saw their health care provider thrice a year and used their patient portal pre- and postpandemic increased. However, the overall increase in patients using their portals before and during the first two years of the pandemic remains below 50%.
Conclusions: Overall, the pandemic increased patients’ use of telemedicine but only significantly increased their usage of patient portals for those patients who saw their provider three or more times a year. These findings indicate that more interaction with providers might impact future portal usage.