Courtney R. Lyles|Lina Tieu|Urmimala Sarkar|Stephen Kiyoi|Shobha Sadasivaiah|Mekhala Hoskote|Neda Ratanawongsa|Dean Schillinger
A Randomized Trial to Train Vulnerable Primary Care Patients to Use a Patient Portal
Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco|Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco|Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco|Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco|Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco|Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco|Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco|Health Net|University of California, Los Angeles|San Francisco General Hospital|University of California, San Francisco
patient portals becoming ubiquitous previous research documented substantial barriers especially among vulnerable patient subgroups lower socioeconomic status limited health literacy lhl tested effectiveness delivering online videobased portal training patients safety net settingwe created online video curriculum accessing san francisco health network portal randomized 93 englishspeaking patients 1 chronic diseases receive 1 inperson tutorial research assistant 2 link view videos also examined third nonrandomized usual care comparison group primary outcome portal login yesno 3 6 months posttraining assessed via electronic health record secondary outcomes selfreported attitudes skills collected via baseline followup surveysmean age 54 years 51 lhl 60 nonwhite 52 female 45 reported fairpoor health 76 reported daily internet use followup 21 logged portal differences arm p 41 higher overall clinic rate 9 p 01 time period found significant prepost improvements selfrated portal skills p 03 ehealth literacy p 01 lhl less likely log posttraining p 01both modalities online training comparable neither mode enabled majority vulnerable patients use portals especially lhl suggests portal training need intensive portals need improved usability meaningfully increase use among diverse patients