How outcomes are achieved through patient portals: a realist review.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To examine how patient portals contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The specific aims were to examine how outcomes are produced, and how variations in outcomes can be explained.

Methods

We used a realist review method, which aims to describe how 'an intervention works, for whom, and in what circumstances' by analyzing patterns between context, mechanism, and outcomes. We reviewed 32 evaluation studies of patient portals published since 2003.

Results

The reviewed evaluations indicate that as a complement to existing health services, patient portals can lead to improvements in clinical outcomes, patient behavior, and experiences. Four different mechanisms are reported to yield the reported outcome improvements. These are patient insight

SUBMITTER: Otte-Trojel T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4078283 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature