Athenahealth, Epic and Medfusion are the best electronic health record vendors for helping to facilitate patient portal adoption among their customers, according to a new KLAS report, Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review reports
The report was based on interviews with 186 provider organizations. The organizations were asked about the extent to which their EHR vendors helped to meet their current needs and helped to develop strategic solutions for the future (KLAS release, 4/23).
The report analyzed EHR vendor performance on three types of patient portal strategies:
- Ambulatory;
- Enterprise; and
- EHR agnostic.
Report Findings
KLAS found that athenahealth, Epic and Medfusion each had more than half of their customers report that 20% or more of their patients accessed patient portals — well above the current requirement under Stage 2 of the meaningful use program.
Under the 2009 economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
Under Stage 2, providers must have 5% of their patients view, download and transmit their health data through patient portals. However, CMS has proposed new Stage 2 rules that would reduce that requirement to a single patient per provider.
According to report author Coray Tate, providers said that the most effective means of encouraging patient portal adoption were:
- Guidance from vendors; and
- Functionality that patients found useful, such as self-scheduling and billing (Gruessner, EHR Intelligence, 4/28).
