Patient Portal Messaging for Asynchronous Virtual Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Analysis

Ming Huang, Aditya Khurana, George Mastorakos, Andrew Wen, Huan He, Liwei Wang, Sijia Liu, Yanshan Wang, Nansu Zong, Julie Prigge, Brian Costello, Nilay Shah, Henry Ting, Jungwei Fan, Christi Patten, Hongfang Liu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, patient portals and their message platforms allowed remote access to health care. Utilization patterns in patient messaging during the COVID-19 crisis have not been studied thoroughly. In this work, we propose characterizing patients and their use of asynchronous virtual care for COVID-19 via a retrospective analysis of patient portal messages. Objective: This study aimed to perform a retrospective analysis of portal messages to probe asynchronous patient responses to the COVID-19 crisis. Methods: We collected over 2 million patient-generated messages (PGMs) at Mayo Clinic during February 1 to August 31, 2020. We analyzed descriptive statistics on PGMs related to COVID-19 and incorporated patients' sociodemographic factors into the analysis. We analyzed the PGMs on COVID-19 in terms of COVID-19-related care (eg, COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 tests and results) and other health issues (eg, appointment cancellation, anxiety, and depression). Results: The majority of PGMs on COVID-19 pertained to COVID-19 symptom self-assessment (42.50%) and COVID-19 tests and results (30.84%). The PGMs related to COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 test results had dynamic patterns and peaks similar to the newly confirmed cases in the United States and in Minnesota. The trend of PGMs related to COVID-19 care plans paralleled trends in newly hospitalized cases and deaths. After an initial peak in March, the PGMs on issues such as appointment cancellations and anxiety regarding COVID-19 displayed a declining trend. The majority of message senders were 30-64 years old, married, female, White, or urban residents. This majority was an even higher proportion among patients who sent portal messages on COVID-19. Conclusions: During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients increased portal messaging utilization to address health care issues about COVID-19 (in particular, symptom self-assessment and tests and results). Trends in message usage closely followed national trends in new cases and hospitalizations. There is a wide disparity for minority and rural populations in the use of PGMs for addressing the COVID-19 crisis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere35187
JournalJMIR Human Factors
Volume9
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2022

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • asynchronous communication
  • digital health
  • health care
  • healthcare
  • pandemic
  • patient portal
  • patient portal message
  • remote healthcare
  • utilization
  • virtual care

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Human Factors and Ergonomics
  • Health Informatics

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