Portal to a different patient experience
GENERAL practitioners appear to be warming to patient portals that let them communicate with patients over the internet.
Karori Medical Centre doctor Peter Moodie said about 40,000 people had registered to use patient portals, including about 4500 at the Karori practice.
The practice has been a pioneer with about 40 per cent of its eligible patients enrolled.
Patients can use its portal to book appointments, check their lab results, request a repeat prescription and send messages to their GP, he said.
‘‘I personally allow people see all their case notes.’’
As I am a patient of the practice, Moodie offers to enrol me over the phone and five minutes later I have my own password.
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Online is a record for an antibiotic I was prescribed last year, some notes about my family medical history, my occupation, an admission I smoked until 2000 and a ‘‘surprise revelation’’ (not quite true) that I consume 10 units of alcohol a day.
Karl Cole, a GP who has his own Auckland practice and is an ‘‘ehealth ambassador’’ for the National Health IT Board, said some doctors remain resistant to patient portals, fearing they would increase their workload for no extra benefit and they might get swamped by patients’ requests for information.
But he said more GPs were coming round as they realised they could use their features as much or as little as they liked.
‘‘They can just start with appointments booking, and then for approving repeat prescriptions, one patient at a time if they want to. And they can turn it off if people abuse it.’’
The top three uses he had found for his portal were processing repeat prescriptions, following up on consultations and sharing the results of blood tests.
‘‘There is a concept of an ‘expert patient’ and what I am finding is people are becoming expert patients, more educated, faster.’’
Moodie said attempting to diagnose people online was probably the lowest of all the priorities.
‘‘Time will tell, but I just don’t think that is really going to happen, because when people ask for advice, just about invariably the answer is: ‘You should come in and we should have a look’.
‘‘If you get it wrong over the phone or internet, you are in trouble.’’